


Time to Pretend

by Rowan_M



Series: A Matter of Time [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Peter Parker is Tony Stark's Biological Child, Peter is a Little Shit, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Time Travel, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-05-17 19:37:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 38,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14837909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rowan_M/pseuds/Rowan_M
Summary: A villain attacking New York sends an injured Peter back in time to the year 2000. Not knowing how to get home, Peter asks Tony Stark for help and ends up finding out a lot about his and Tony's past.Peter is given an opportunity to change the future, or leave things be.(This is a bad summary, I'm sorry.)





	1. Welcome to your life, There's no turning back

It started when yet another evil villain decided to attack New York. Peter was always happy to help when his city was in need, but he wished that sometimes the bad guys would give it a rest. Today’s bad guy looked particularly eccentric; wearing goggles that glowed purple, a long leather jacket that reached down to his ankles and carrying a bulky gun that shot lasers. 

“Come on, dude,” Peter groaned as he just missed getting hit by a glowing green laser shot from the evil guy’s seemingly home-made gun. “Can we wrap this up, I’ve got shit to do,” he whined as he propelled himself forward on a web and landed a solid kick in the guy’s chest, knocking him over. 

“Language,” Tony chastised off-handily over the comms. “But nice shot, kid.” Tony had invited himself to this little battle when Karen called him, claiming that Peter was in over his head, which he wasn’t.

“Thanks, Mr Stark,” Peter smiled at the praise as he attached himself to the side of a building.

Tony zoomed passed him as he went to engage with the man. “How’s the NYPD doing with that perimeter, FRIDAY?”

Peter heard the gentle Irish voice distantly through the comms. “They’ve successfully evacuated the area within a four-block radius, sir,” FRIDAY said.

“Good,” Tony replied, closely dodging a laser blast from the man. “This guy is not giving up,” he grunted.

With a flick of his wrist, Peter shot a strand of web to the tall building opposite them and swung from his perch. “What is that gun thing he’s got, by the way?” he asked, aiming a web at the man’s face, but missing.

“No idea,” Tony grumbled as he shot repulsor blasts at the goggled man. “But it looks temperamental as hell.” 

As if on cue, the gun whirred loudly and shot several lasers in random directions. 

“Pete, look out!” Tony yelled, but peter didn’t have time to react before the laser grazed across the side of his torso. 

He let out a shout of pain and lost his grip on the building. Peter could barely register plummeting to the floor through the pain but was rudely awoken as he hit the floor with a painful smack. 

“Ouch,” Peter grumbled as he lay on the tarmac of the usually busy road. 

Was it an exaggeration to say that everything hurt? No. Well, probably yes, but to Peter in that moment, the pain was so consuming that he couldn’t tell which parts of him hurt. 

“Peter?!” 

That was Mr Stark. He could tell that much. 

But suddenly he was being roughly hauled into a nearly standing position. 

“You’re not Mr Stark,” Peter slurred as he dazedly focused his eyes on the purple glowing eyes of the man supporting him. 

“That’s right,” the hissed in Peter’s ear in a deep voice. “And Mr Stark will keep his distance unless he wants the kid’s brains blown out,” the evil man shouted. 

Peter saw Tony stop mid-flight as the laser gun was placed roughly at Peter’s temple. 

“Let the kid go, moron,” Tony demanded, raising his hand threateningly. 

“No thanks, I’ve got plans for this one.” The evil man re-positioned the barely conscious Peter and took one of his arms clamping what looked like a bulky digital watch on his wrist.

“Stay back, Stark. I don’t want to have to kill this kid.”

Peter weakly tried to fight the guy and pull the watch off himself, but he was too weak, and it wouldn’t budge. 

“Say goodbye to your kid, Stark,” The man laughed as he fiddled with the watch. “Have a nice trip, Peter!” 

“Mister Stark,” Peter called helplessly as he struggled, panicking at the man's knowledge of his true identity. 

“Hang in there, Pete,” Tony said, and Peter saw his repulsors beginning to charge, but before they fired, the man pressed the face of the watch in and Peter was consumed by an ominous green light.

Peter could hear nothing but the blood rushing in his ears. He couldn’t tell whether his eyes were open or closed, but either way all he could see was the green light. He felt like he was falling through the air.

Suddenly it all stopped. His legs found solid ground and the green light faded away to what he recognised as sunlight. The pain in his body came back at full force and his vision swirled before it could even properly focus. Then a loud noise. Like screeching brakes. And a flash of increased pain. Then darkness. 

***

“Calm down, the nurse said he’d be fine. You didn’t do the worst of the damage anyway, he was pretty banged up already when you hit him.” 

That voice. Peter definitely knew it, but it sounded distant.

“Poor guy must’ve taken a proper beating.” 

That was a different voice, one that Peter, in the depths of his mind, associated with grumpy remarks and incessant nags. 

Slowly, Peter seemed to surface. He could feel numb pain now and could hear a loud beeping next to his head. He cautiously opened his eyes and cringed at the harsh lights. His reaction must have been visible because there was a loud scraping of chairs against lino floors and a hand placed cautiously on his arm. 

“Kid? Are you waking up, Kid?” 

Peter opened his eyes once more, blinking a few times while they focused. Soon, the fuzzy blur formed into the worried face of Tony Stark. 

“Mr Stark?” Peter mumbled confused. 

Something was wrong.

There was no recognition in Tony’s eyes. His hair was slightly longer and a darker colour than Peter was used to seeing on the man. His goatee didn’t reach all the way along his jaw line and was a fuller colour. His face was less lined – less haunted. 

“What do you know, Happy. The kid’s a fan!” Tony smiled mischievously at his friend, apparently not recognising Peter at all. 

“Happy?” Peter asked, looking around Tony to see if maybe Happy recognised him.

“That’s me kid,” Happy said, stepping around Tony so Peter could see him. “Look I’m so sorry-”

Peter didn’t hear the rest of the apology. Because that was not the Happy Hogan Peter knew. This Happy had a mullet, and a goatee similar to Tony’s. His hair was not tinged with grey but was a long mane of mouse-brown. And above all, this Happy was apologising to Peter, and he looked genuinely sorry, which was not something Happy Hogan would usually do.

He looked between Happy and Tony. These were not the men he knew. 

“Where am I?” Peter asked with a shaking voice. He struggled to sit up in bed, clutching at the side of his torso, where he was feeling a blinding burning sensation. 

“Whoa, kid! Lay back down,” Tony insisted, and moved forward to help Peter lay back. 

Peter looked at his surroundings as Tony’s hands pushed on his shoulders. He appeared to be in a hospital room, but the equipment looked retro and out-dated. There was a huge, bulky TV on a table in the corner, which reminded Peter of the TV that his parents had had before they died and left him with Ben and May. The colour on the screen was harsh and saturated, and the woman on the news channel that was playing had her hair in a bushy up-do. 

The heart rate monitor that Peter was hooked up too was also huge, and the beeping was loud and harsh. The walls were painted a falsely happy yellow colour that made Peter feel sick. 

“Kid? Kid?” Tony’s voice interrupted Peter’s thoughts and brought his attention back to them. 

“I- I don’t understand. What happened to you guys? Where are we? Why do you look like that?” Peter’s voice was shaking with panic. 

“That was harsh kid,” Tony laughed. “We’re at the hospital because Happy hit you with the car. Remember?”

Peter shook his head, which he immediately regretted as it made his vision swim dizzily. “How could he have? He wasn’t- wasn’t…”

With an anguished moan, Peter clasped his hands to his head, trying to remember what happened before he blacked out. 

There was a fight – yes! And Tony had been there. And the evil guy with the purple goggles hit Peter with a laser. And then the watch-thingy and the green light. 

“The watch-thingy,” he said aloud, looking at his wrist and, indeed, finding the bulky black watch still strapped to his wrist. 

“Go get a doctor would you, Happy,” he heard Tony say as Peter examined the watch. 

Only now he was looking at it did he realise that it didn’t just tell the time… it also displayed the date in digital green numbers. 

**16.48  
16/8/2000**

The date was right, but the year was definitely wrong. Like, eighteen years wrong. 

Just then, the door to Peter’s room opened and a doctor wearing a white coat and large smile entered, followed closely by Happy, 

“What seems to be the problem?” she asked Tony. 

Tony stood back from the bed and watched as the doctor shone a light in Peter’s eyes and checked his pulse. 

“He seems confused,” Tony explained, “and I think he's in pain.” 

The doctor hummed. “Can I ask you a few questions kid?” 

Peter nodded.

“Okay, what’s your name?” she asked slowly, but politely. 

“…Peter,” he mumbled. 

“Good,” the doctor noted something down on her clipboard. “Now, what day of the week is it?”

Peter was pretty sure the fight had been on a Thursday, but he wasn’t sure how long he’d been asleep. “Thursday?”

Happy gasped, and Tony patted his back comfortingly. 

“Well, no, Peter, it is Sunday today,” the doctor said gently. “Never mind, you’re probably just confused.” As hell, Peter added in his head. “Do you know what year it is, Peter?” she asked hopefully.

“Two thousand and eighteen,” Peter replied. 

All three of the adults in the room turned to him with equally confused and shocked expressions. 

“Peter,” the doctor said slowly and carefully, like Peter was a delicate child. “It’s the year two thousand.”

For several moments, Peter stared at them, before he grinned. 

“Okay, Mr Stark, this is very funny and all, but can you guys drop the act now?” 

"Kid, do you really think it's two thousand and eighteen?" the doctor asked.

Peter frowned at them. "It _is_ two thousand and eighteen."

All three of them continued to stare at him like he was mad. Then the doctor sprang into action, rushing outside to call more doctors into the room. 

The small room was suddenly crowded with hospital personnel. It was loud, and the people were rushing around, moving Peter’s head to examine his eyes and ears. Someone was running fingers around his scalp, checking for bumps. One doctor was demanding that they did more scans.

“Kid, you need to breathe,” one kind-faced doctor instructed. “Stop panicking, you’re going to be fine.”

Peter hadn’t known he’d stopped breathing until the doctor said that, and suddenly it felt like any residual air was being sucked out of his chest. 

“The kids panicking, we need a sedative,” someone demanded. 

It wasn’t a joke. Peter could see Mr Stark frowning at him, still not recognising him. Mr Stark didn’t know who he was. And neither did the Happy with the mullet. Who were they? _That’s not my Mr Stark!_ Peter screamed internally. 

…But what if it was? What if Mr Stark just didn’t know him yet? What if it was only the year two thousand? 

That would explain the hair, the goatees, the TV. 

Maybe the watch on his wrist had sent him back to the 16th August two thousand.

Peter didn’t have time to fully comprehend this before he felt the prick of a needle and blacked out.


	2. Disco 2000

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. So the response to the first chapter was amazing, thank you all so much for your kudos and comments, I'm so glad that you enjoyed it! I hope this chapter is okay, I know it's not the best but it is just the awkward seg-way chapter to get Tony and Peter on the right track. Sorry about any Britishness (e.g. lift=elevator).

As Peter came-to, he realised someone was gently holding his hand. No, not holding – moving. They were rotating his wrist slowly, as though examining it. 

“Why are you so obsessed with his watch?” a voice asked. 

That was definitely Happy’s voice, Peter was sure of it this time.

“It’s not a watch.” 

And that was Mr Stark, there was no mistaking. 

Peter wonder if, maybe what had happened the last time he’d been conscious had been a dream. He wouldn’t even mind if it was a hallucination; just as long as it wasn’t real. 

Subtly, Peter pried his eyes open, and saw the sickly yellow of the hospital walls once again. 

_Shit._

He closed his eyes again. 

_Shitshitshit._

This was not good. 

The purple-goggled guy had actually sent him back in time. 

To two thousand. 

Peter wasn’t even born.

 _Oh my God,_ Peter thought to himself. _I’m not even born yet._

That complicates things slightly. 

“It is a watch,” Happy argued, bringing Peter back to the here and now. 

“No, it’s not,” Tony insisted. “The time on it hasn’t changed since you hit him with the car.”

Peter heard Happy curse Tony under his breath. 

 

Tony ignored him. “And look at all these buttons and things on the side; there aren’t that many on an ordinary watch.”

“So, the kid has a high-tech watch, what’s the big deal?” Happy grumbled. 

“Didn’t you see what he was wearing?” Tony asked.

“That ridiculous red and blue suit?” 

 

“Yeah, what was with that?” Tony queried, sounding more and more confused. 

“Fancy dress?” Happy laughed.

There was the scraping of a chair, and Peter opened his eyes a minute amount to see Tony walking away from his bed and towards where Peter could see his suit had been laid across a chair. Peter panicked as he realised that the suit had Stark’s logo throughout the inner lining of the suit, and it would be extremely difficult to explain away.

Peter faked a groan and pretended to slowly be coming to. 

“Kid’s awake,” Happy said, moving nearer to Peter’s bed. 

Peter saw Tony turn around and head back to Peter’s bedside. 

“Hey kid – Peter is it?” Tony asked kindly. 

“Yeah,” Peter affirmed.

“Do you know who I am, Peter?”

Peter nodded his head gently, to not disturb his headache. 

With a smile Tony gestured to Happy. “This is Happy, he’s my driver, body guard, friend, blah blah blah. He is very sorry that he hit you with the car.” Happy nodded earnestly. “I promise I’ll pay for all your hospital bills and-”

“It’s fine, you don’t have to,” Peter interrupted. 

“No, no, I insist. So, anyway just tell me your name and I’ll get my people to transfer the money to your parents and-”

“Really, Mr Stark. That’s not exactly an option,” Peter shrugged. 

Tony frowned. “What do you mean? I’m offering you money. I don’t follow.”

For a long moment Peter thought about what he should do. He was stuck in two thousand, with no clothes apart from his suit, no money, and no way of getting home. He had a device stuck on his wrist which transported him here, so maybe it could transport him back. But how? He didn’t know how to get this thing to work. 

That’s when it dawned on him. Tony Stark was probably the only person who had any hope of figuring out how to send Peter back. 

“You okay, kid?” Tony asked, before turning to Happy. “I thought the scans said he just had a concussion?”

“They did,” Happy nodded.

“I’m fine,” Peter began. “I was fine before too.”

Tony huffed a laugh. “I really don’t think so, kid. You thought the year was two thousand and eighteen.”

“I know I did.” Peter took a steadying breath. “That’s because I’m from two thousand and eighteen.” Tony and Happy both wore disbelieving expressions. “I am, honestly. I – here I’ll prove it.” Peter pulled the IV out of his arm and turned the heart rate monitor off before pulling the sticky pads off his chest and jumping out of bed. 

“Whoa, kid, slow down there,” Tony said.

“I’m fine,” Peter assured him as he began to make his way across the room, but only made it a few steps before he stumbled. 

“Let’s get you back in bed and find you a doctor,” Tony soothed as he took a steadying hold of Peter’s arm. 

“No, just let me get to my suit,” Peter insisted, pulling on Tony’s grip and dragging them towards the chair with his suit on. “Look here,” said Peter as he picked up the suit and found the Stark logo and showing it to Tony. “You made this for me like two years ago – oh, like… twenty-sixteen. Look at the tech,” He said, pushing the spider emblem on the chest and watching as the suit contracted. “This is way too advanced for two thousand.”

Peter looked earnestly into Tony’s face as he took the suit and studied the tech for himself. Tony’s eyes were wide in wonder and awe. 

“I couldn’t make something like this. I make military products, not clothes,” Tony insisted, though still looking at the suit with curious eyes. 

“You don’t anymore, or you don’t in the future. You make clean energy now and you made this for me because…” Peter didn’t realise how hard this would be to explain. “Because in the future I fight crime in New York, and you made it to keep track of me and protect me.”

“Tony,” Happy said in a warning voice. “You don’t believe this do you?”

Peter looked back at Tony, seeing apprehension in his eyes, but a wondrous look on his face. 

“I…” Tony began. “I don’t know…” 

“Please, I just need your help to get me back home,” Peter pleaded. “This watch thing,” he showed them the watch that was strapped to his wrist, “is what got me here, but I don’t know how to get it to take be back, and, Mr Stark, you’re like the cleverest person ever, so please…” Peter’s begging died off. “Look,” he cried suddenly getting an idea and rummaging through the hidden pickets in his suit. “My phone. It’s a StarkPhone, your company produces them in the future, look at the date,” he says, turning the screen on and pointing to the digital date displayed under the current time. It read, as predicted, 16th August 2018. “Here,” Peter added, pulling out the driver’s licence that he’d recently obtained. “Look at the expiration date – look at my date of birth; 1st April 2001. I’m not even born yet.”

Tony slowly put the suit down and looked Peter dead in the eyes with a calculating gaze. Then, he tilted his head, straightened his back and nodded slowly. 

“I… I believe you,” he said slowly. 

Peter couldn’t believe his luck. “Oh my God, Mr Stark! Thank you so much!”

“Tony!” Happy reprimanded. “You can’t be serious! How can you believe that he’s from the future! The kid is just a crazy fan who wants to-”

“No, Happy,” Tony shook his head. “This suit was definitely made by me, I can tell; I’ve used upgraded versions of some of my current tech, versions that I couldn’t even make today. It’s ingenious, even if I say so myself.” 

“But-”

“Happy, I am going to help this kid get back to the future,” Tony insisted. “And if he’s lying – which I personally don’t think he is – then big deal, he’s a kid.” Happy dutifully shut up. “Okay, so when was it that you were born, Peter?” Tony asked. 

“1st April two thousand and one,” Peter replied. 

“Okay, jeez, you’re not even born yet, that is for sure going to complicate things,” Tony sighed. “We need to get you out of this hospital before they start asking questions about your name and parents and stuff.” 

Peter suddenly realised something. In this time, his parents and Uncle Ben were still alive. He could meet them. He could warn them that… No. No, he couldn’t do anything. He’d seen enough time travel movies to know that doing anything to change the past could have catastrophic consequences. 

“You with us, kid?” Tony asked, eyeing Peter worriedly. 

“Yeah,” Peter nodded. “I know a way I can get out of here.”

“But the kid hasn’t been discharged yet, he’s still injured,” Happy protested. 

Tony looked back at Peter, who was swaying slightly as he stood, and was donning blue hospital pyjamas. 

“I’ll be fine, I heal fast,” Peter rambled. “I need to get out of here before the doctors come back and…”

Tony gripped Peter’s shoulder in a comforting and calming gesture. “We’ll get you out of here, kid, don’t worry.” 

***

Peter watched the seconds on the clock tick by nervously as he waited for seven twenty-seven, giving him three minutes to make his way down to meet Happy and Tony in the car park at the drop off and pick up zone. 

He fiddled nervously with the hem of Tony’s suit jacket, which he’d lent to Peter to put over his Spider-man suit to make it less noticeable, but the blue and red pants would probably give it away. 

Tony from the past was a much nicer man than Peter had expected. Peter knew Tony used to have a colossal reputation for being the spoilt-drunk-playboy type, but so far, he’d been nothing but kind and caring towards Peter. 

The clock struck seven twenty-seven, and Peter cautiously got out of the bed. He could still feel the aches and pains in his body from the fight, and from being hit by Happy’s car, especially since he’d taken the IV out, which must have been delivering pain medication. He put a steadying hand on the wall and headed to the door, waiting until he could hear no one in the corridor beyond before stepping out of the room. 

Peter, unfortunately, had been housed in a room on the side of the hospital facing the road, and crawling down the side of a building for all to see would draw too much unwanted attention. Instead, Peter made his way along the opposite side of the corridor, listening closely at each door to see if it was empty.  
Eventually, he found a supply room with a small window that was currently empty. He opened the window and peered down at the alleyway twelve stories below. He carefully clambered out the window and stuck to the wall besides and slid the window back into place. 

With his current injuries, jumping from this height was not a good idea. So, Peter aimed a web at the wall above him and slowly began to abseil down the side of the hospital. 

“I got blasted eighteen years into the past, I got hit by a car, and now I’m breaking out of a hospital, not exactly a quiet life,” Peter mumbled to himself. 

Once in the alleyway, Peter dusted himself off and headed round the side to the carpark. 

“Oh damn.”

Maybe this wasn’t the best plan. Now, Peter realises, that not only does he not know which car Mr Stark’s is, but he has to walk passed the main entrance and ambulance point to get to the drop off zone. 

Stepping back into the alleyway, Peter pulled the suit’s mask out of his pocket and pulled it on. 

“Uh, Karen? Do you still work?” Peter asked uncertainly. 

“Hello, Peter,” the kind, female voice greeting. Peter could have cried at the presence of the familiar voice. “I am currently working, but the majority of my  
functions are unavailable as I am unable to connect to Mr Stark’s database.”

“Okay, cool, that’s because we're in the year two thousand,” Peter nodded. 

“That is an interesting occurrence,” Karen stated simply, which made Peter laugh.

“I suppose that’s one word for it. Anyway, I need to get passed the entrance without being seen on the CCTV or by any doctors because I've technically just broken out of here, any ideas?” 

 

“Why don’t you web the cameras and leave your mask on, that way no one can see you face?” Karen suggested. 

“That is… a great idea! Why didn’t I think of that?” Peter declared.

“Perhaps your concussion is impairing your problem-solving skills. May I add, Peter, that breaking out of a hospital with your current injuries was a very unwise decision, it appears that you are still in need of medical observation and treatment.”

Peter shrugged. “I know, but I couldn’t stay any longer, I need to get home,” he said as he shot webs at the two security cameras pointed toward the entrance. He walked casually out from the alley and wandered through the steady stream of people entering and exiting the hospital. 

“Okay,” he said as he reached the drop off point. “Now I need to find the most expensive car.”

“There’s an Audi parked a little way down,” Karen supplied. 

“Okay, I’ll try that one.”

Peter spotted the Audi and jogged towards it but was knocked off his feet as a woman collided with him. He groaned as his injures protested the sudden fall and struggled to his feet.

“I’m so, so sorry,” the woman apologised, trying to help Peter up. “I – oh!” She stopped dead and frowned at Peter when she saw the mask. 

“No, no it’s okay, ma’am,” Peter began to reassure her, but also stopped when she saw the woman’s appearance. She was slightly shorter than Peter but had the same shade of brown hair. And her steely blue eyes… Peter knew those eyes. He’d been trying so hard to ingrain the image of those eyes and that face in his memory since he’d found out his parents had died when he was five years old. This woman was unmistakably Peter’s mother. 

“I.. sorry, I didn’t mean to stare, it’s just the mask and…” Peter’s mother stuttered, the same as Peter did when he was in an awkward situation.

“It’s fine,” Peter breathed.

“Well, sorry again for knocking you over,” she said politely, before smiling sadly and getting into the car beside them. Peter watched as they drove away, wishing to run after the car, to tell his mother that he was her son, and to be held by his mother one more time. 

“Who was that?” Karen asked.

Peter struggled to find words. “I… I think it was my mother.”

There was the sudden harsh noise of a car horn, and, turning around, Peter realised it was the black Audi Karen had pointed out. Peter approach cautiously, trying to shake away the shock of running into his mother, and saw Happy gesturing for him to get in the back of the car through the driver’s side window. 

“You took your time,” Tony said, as Peter buckled himself in. 

“Sorry,” Peter mumbled, absentmindedly. 

“It’s okay, kid,” Tony smiled. “Drive, Happy.”

A thought occurred to Peter as he watched the New York streets pass by out the window. “So… what are you guys doing in New York, anyway? I thought you still lived in California in two thousand.”

“I usually do, but we’re on a visit to the Stark Industries building here in New York, at the moment,” Tony explained. “I’ve got a penthouse in the top floors, so you can stay in one of the guest rooms until we can get you home.”

“What?” Peter was amazed by this man’s continued kindness. “Mr Stark, you don’t have to-”

“Relax, kid,” Tony laughed. “It’s not like you’ve got anywhere else you can stay.”

It wasn’t long before they arrived at the SI building, which was located where Avengers Tower stood eighteen years in the future. 

“You can take the mask off, you know, Pete,” Tony suggested as they got out the car. “It’s not like anyone’s going to recognise you. Plus, the eyes are creeping me out a bit.”

“You made it,” Peter grumbled as he pulled the red mask from his head and smoothed his hair out. He followed Tony to the elevator while Happy parked the car. 

“You look exhausted,” Tony commented when they were both in the lift. He pushed the button that was labelled ‘PRIVATE FLOOR’ and pushed his thumb on the  
finger scanner when it asked for identification. “Straight to bed for you, kid.”

“But what about getting me home?” Peter asked worriedly. 

“We can do that in the morning, Pete. You look dead on your feet, right now,” Tony said, calmly. 

The lift stopped, and the doors opened. Tony guided Peter through the suite and into a comfortable looking guest room. He sat Peter down on the bed and went into the adjoining bathroom, returning moments later with a glass of water and some tablets.

“Here, take these,” said Tony, putting two tablets into Peter’s hand. “It’ll help with the pain, so you sleep better.” 

Peter was too tired to question anything now, so he took the tablets and allowed Tony to help him take the jacket off. 

“Sleep well, kiddo,” Tony smiled as he watched Peter crawl under the covers. It reminded Peter so much of future Tony that he momentarily forgot about being stuck in the past.

“Thanks, Mr Stark,” Peter murmured sleepily, and immediately fell asleep. 

Interlude: Tony’s POV  
Tony couldn’t explain why he already trusted and liked Peter so much. He’d only known the boy for a few hours and already he was calling him “Pete” and “Kiddo” and letting him stay in his house. There was just something about Peter that Tony couldn’t quite put his finger on. Something inside Tony that told him to help a kid who had appeared in front of their car.  
He couldn’t explain it.


	3. Pulled My Trigger

Peter’s night of sleep was not as peaceful as he’d hoped. He was awoken numerous times through the night after rolling on his injured side by mistake and had at least three nightmares where he was stuck in the past forever. He was almost happy when he woke from another bad dream and realised that he was safely in Mr Stark’s guest room, even though it was two thousand, and was particularly thankful to see daylight creeping in through the drawn curtains. 

With a satisfying stretch, Peter sat up in bed and looked to the bedside table, finding an alarm clock reading nine-thirty, and a note scribbled in Tony’s familiar handwriting. 

_Good morning,_  
There’s clothes on the chair for you – get dressed and meet me in my lab on the sub-basement floor.  
-Tony 

Peter got dressed into the comfortably loose track-suit trousers and jumper. He took his time making his way through Tony’s penthouse, as he’d been too exhausted to fully appreciate it last night. 

The open-plan living area and kitchen looked like it was worth millions and was decorated with ornate vases and abstract paintings. The carpets felt beautifully soft under Peter’s socked feet, and the walls were painted a pristine white. Though a lot of it looked slightly retro to Peter, he could appreciate that it extremely classy.

Peter was thankful that the lift took him straight down to Tony’s lab without stopping to let anyone else in; a teenage boy in what looked like pyjamas would stick out like a sore thumb among the business people and scientists.

The lab looked like a crazy scientist’s lab from an old movie. The equipment and computers looked ancient to Peter’s young eyes, but the various bits and pieces that Tony had clearly been tinkering with looked way ahead of their time. 

“Mr Stark?” Peter asked as he wandered through the lab, but not seeing Tony. 

“Round here, kid,” Tony’s voice called, and Peter followed it around a corner of the lab.

“Whoa,” Peter gaped, “This lab huge.” 

The room was much bigger than Peter had first thought, but it seemed to be split around a corner. Tony was sat at a desk near the corner, several old computer screens encircled him. The room was filled with tables and work tops, all cluttered with half-finished projects and strewn with paper. 

“That’s the perks of being a billionaire I guess,” Tony shrugged as he looked over his shoulder at Peter. “How did you sleep, Peter?” he asked, frowning in concern.

Peter’s eyes wandered away from Tony’s. “Good,” he mumbled. 

“And do you lie to future Tony, too?” Tony huffed. “Come here.” He beckoned Peter over to a table and cleared away the broken parts and paper, before tapping the surface in an obvious instruction for Peter to sit on it. “Dum-E, can you pass me the first-aid kit?” 

Peter spun around at the sound of the robot’s name. “Of course,” he mumbled to himself as he watched the first robot Tony made spin around and reach with its mechanical arm for a first-aid box that had been left on a nearby work-surface. 

“Oh, don’t tell me I still have that useless piece of robot in the future?” Tony moaned, accepting the kit from Dum-E, who made a high-pitched whirr of happiness.

With a laugh, Peter nodded his head. 

“I’m doomed,” Tony shook his head. “Here, kid, lift your shirt up so I can take a look at that wound.”

“What?” Peter stuttered. “Mr Stark, you don’t have to - it’s fine I swear!” 

Tony smiled sweetly at Peter. “Nonsense, we took you out of hospital early, you’re not fully healed. The least I could do is give you a look over and redress your wound,” Tony insisted, and Peter noticed a slightly guilty look in his eyes. “Lay down, Pete. I’m not taking no for an answer.” 

With a reluctant sigh, Peter carefully pulled off his shirt and lowered himself gently to so that the cold surface was against his back. He watched nervously as Tony cut the bandages and dressings around his torso away with the scissors from the first-aid kit, revealing the ugly, burned gash the laser had left on his side. The burns didn’t look too bad, and the wound itself had already started to heal, but it still looked painful and gory enough to leave both Tony and Peter wincing. 

“Christ, kid,” Tony exclaimed. “What the hell happened to you?” He started to dab a large amount of antiseptic on the wound, causing Peter to hiss in pain while he muttered an apology. 

“I got shot at with a laser gun,” Peter mumbled, “by the guy who sent be back in time. He’s a bad guy.”

“You don't say,” Tony said, laughing at Peter’s childishness, and moving on to dress the wound. “Why does future me let you – a teenage boy – go around fighting guys with laser guns? How does future me even know you?”

Peter sighed. “That would be spoiling it for you, Mr Stark. Did you ever see _Back to the Future?_ ” 

“Is that even a question? Of course, I’ve seen Back to the Future!” said Tony, aghast, as he sat Peter up carefully in order to wrap bandages tightly around his torso.

“So, you know how Marty wants to warn Dr Brown that he dies on the day Marty gets sent back in time, but Dr Brown refuses to listen to him because knowing too much about your own future can be dangerous?” Peter asked. Tony nodded, concentrating hard on bandaging Peter’s wound. “It’s kind of like that; I can’t tell you in case it makes you change something and then kick off a chain of events that would lead to the destruction of the world or something.”

With a satisfied nod, Tony tied off the bandage and looked up at Peter. “You’re forgetting that Dr Brown repairs the note Marty left for him and reads it, allowing him to prevent his death in the future by wearing a bullet-proof vest on the day Marty gets sent back in time. So really, knowing about the future actually helps them,” Tony finished with a small smile. 

“Yeah, so it helped that one time, but that was different,” Peter whined, begging Tony to understand him. “I don’t want to risk it, okay Mr Stark? So, I will not be telling you any more information about the future.”

Tony laughed and shook his head. “You’ve seen way too many time-travel movies, kid, but I’m not going to force you to tell me anything about the future that you don’t think I should know, okay?” Peter nodded. “Okay then, McFly, let’s get you some pain-killers and take a look at this time-travel device.”

Once Peter had downed the pills Tony offered him, Tony led him to a table with a computer screen and a whole selection of dangerous looking tools. He sat Peter in a chair and lay his left arm across the table and began to prod and poke at the device on Peter’s wrist. 

Tony had only been working for a few minutes when they heard the tell-tale ding of the lift. 

“Who is it?” Tony called in his best house-wife voice, making Peter smile.

“It’s me,” Happy grumbled as he walked around the corner. Happy visibly glared at Peter before turning to Tony with an accusatory look. “What did I say to you last night, Boss?”

“That you didn’t want be to be with the kid without you here,” said Tony, not looking up from his work on the time-travel device. “Don’t worry, Hap; I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a paedophile.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.” He gave Peter a suspicious glance. 

“Happy, calm down,” Tony commanded in a bored tone. “He’s seventeen.”

“Some start young,” Happy countered. “I’m sorry, Tony, but it is my job to protect you and right now I don’t think it is a clever idea to be… be taking a kid under your wing without question!” 

Tony threw his screwdriver down with a clattering bang. “He’s a kid, Happy. I’m trying to help him get home. We can’t just throw him out on the street – he said himself that I might be the only one who can help him get back.”

“But Tony, he’s-”

Happy’s rant was cut short by Peter clearing his throat in a very obvious way. Peter wanted to angrily bite back ‘ _He_ is here!’ or ‘ _He_ is not a kid!’ but decided that he should probably approach this with more delicacy.

“Hap- Mr Hogan, I know you’re just doing your job, but you can trust me, I swear. I just want Mr Stark’s help getting home, and then I’ll be gone. I really can’t do this without him. I’m even friends with Mr Stark in the future – well I hope so, I mean… it’s complicated but please just let us work on getting me home, and as soon as we know what to do, I’ll be gone.” Peter looked at the man with pleading eyes. 

“Come on, Happy,” Tony pouted. “How can you refuse that cute little face?” He cooed. “And you did hit the kid with your car, so you kind of owe him one.”

Though Peter did not appreciate the babying, he was relieved when Happy gave a defeated sigh. “Fine, Peter can stay. But I stay too,” he said, folding his arms and sitting heavily on a nearby chair. 

“Okay, fine, you do that, right after you get us all some breakfast,” Tony humoured him.

“No, Boss, I’m not leaving unless it is and emergency,” said Happy.

“It is an emergency; look how pale Peter is, he clearly needs food – plus, I have a craving for pancakes so…” Tony practically begged. 

Happy shook his head. “Nu uh. I’ll call the kitchen and ask for them to send something down,” he said, getting up from his chair and pulling an ancient Nokia phone out of his jacket pocket as he headed around the corner. 

“Blueberry pancakes please, Happy,” Tony called after him. “So, kid,” he began conversationally as he turned back to work on the watch device. “God, I don’t know how to talk to teenagers - how’s school?”

Peter smiled thoughtfully. “It’s okay – a little boring though.”

“You like to be challenged, huh? Where do you go?” Tony asked, not looking up from his work. 

“Midtown tech,” Peter answered. 

Tony glanced at him briefly. “I’ve heard of it. Is it still high achieving?” Peter nodded. “Smart ass,” Tony scoffed. 

The friendly small talk continued until Happy appeared back around the corner, bearing a tray with a large stack of pancakes. 

“Tuck in, Pete,” Tony invited him, already demolishing his own pancake. 

Happy tutted as he sat down and watched them eat. Peter was sure that the man was still sceptical of him, but that wasn’t exactly something Peter could help.

After breakfast, Tony turned to Peter. “Kid, I can’t figure this thing out without looking at the mechanics. The buttons on it are completely useless, so I’ll have to take the face off it to see how it works.”

Peter nodded, trusting that Tony would be careful with the possibly dangerous machine. He realised that this trust was misplaced, however, as Tony grabbed a screwdriver and roughly plunged it into the gap between the screen of the watch and the main body. Tony prised the screen away by using the screwdriver as a lever. The screen popped off easily, but it was still connected to the main body of the watch by wires. 

“That’s… awesome,” Tony commented, peering at the inside of the watch. 

The watch was a mass of twisted wires and electric charging plates and… a green glowing gem.

“Hey, that’s like the glowy thing,” Peter mused with wide eyes. 

“What the hell is it?” asked Tony, prodding the stone with his screwdriver. 

“It’s explosive,” Peter said, casually. Tony threw the screwdriver down like it was burning him, mumbling some choice curse words under his breath. “Only if it is around radiation, don’t worry.” Peter reassured him. “I’d still be careful though, one exploded in my friend’s backpack once.” Tony shot him a quizzical look. “He’s fine.”

“I’m not even going to ask,” Tony shook his head. “So, what does this… ‘glowy thing’ do?”

“Erm…” Peter stuttered while he tried to explain it without telling Tony it was alien tech. “The other one was a power source, but that one was purple… this… this might be different. It’s green…”

Tony stared at him with a disbelieving look. “Great observation, Pete,” he mumbled. “I’m guessing this is the bit that accomplishes the time-travel.” Tony continued to inspect the device with the screwdriver, though much more gently and cautiously this time. He managed to dislodge the glowy thing, revealing a mass of melted wiring that had been beneath it. “Yep, this is definitely home-made; the glowy thing must have fried the wires and electric plating.”

“So, we just need to replace them, and then I can go home,” Peter smiled excitedly. 

With a small smile, Tony nodded. “I suppose. It could take a while to exactly replicate the tech, though. And reassembling it could be tricky, but after that you’ll be good to go.”

Peter gulped. “How long do you think it’ll take?” he asked in a small voice. 

There was a pause before Tony replied. “A week… maybe.”

A week. A week before Peter would be able to go home, to see May and his friends and his Tony. He wanted to be home now. He didn’t want to be stuck in the past any longer. 

Peter’s panic and fear must have been evident in his face, because soon Tony had a reassuring hand on his shoulder. 

“Hey, kid. It’s okay, we’ll get you home,” Tony said softly. “I’ll work as fast as I can, promise. I won’t stop until I fix this, okay?” Peter nodded tearfully. 

Happy cleared his throat, and Tony and Peter turned towards where he sat across the room. “I’m sorry boss, but you are going to have to stop. May I remind you that you are the billionaire CEO of an internationally acclaimed company, and you have an annual company gala tonight.”

“And?” Tony shrugged. “The company can manage without me for a week - it has before – and I can just skip the gala.” 

“You can’t skip the company gala; you own the company, you are the company – you’re the Stark of Stark Industries,” Happy insisted. 

Tony laughed. “That was a wonderful sentiment, Happy, but, like you said, I’m the Stark of Stark Industries. I can do what I want.”  
Happy quirked an eyebrow. “oh yeah?” he laughed. “Why don’t I go and tell Obi that you’re not going to the gala?” Tony gulped. “I seem to remember him saying that the annual gala is the most important event in this company’s calendar and that if you binned it off, you’d still be paying for it after the next five annual galas.”

With a shrug, Tony turned back to his work. “An empty threat,” he said nonchalantly.

“You sure about that boss?” Happy countered with an evil smile. 

Peter watched as Tony seemed to muse over this for a few moments. “Fine, I’ll go. But only for a few hours, and Peter’s coming with us.”

“What?” Peter and Happy exclaimed.

“Yep.”

“Tony, why?” Happy asked.

Tony continued with his work. “Firstly, because he is a messed-up bundle of anxiety and I'm not happy with leaving him alone,” Tony explained, pointing his screwdriver at Peter. “And secondly,” he continued before Peter could protest. “because he was blasted back in time yesterday – or seventeen years in the future yesterday – by an evil guy with a laser gun. That guy must have sent Peter to this specific time in the past for a reason, so he is not leaving my sight until we can get it home.”

Funnily enough, this hadn’t occurred to Peter before. The laser guy had already set the time on the watch to yesterday at 4.48pm before he put it on Peter's wrist. He must have had a reason for it, mustn’t he?

“Okay, but you’re not really the best option for protecting the kid, are you?” Happy pointed out. “I mean, I’ve boxed with you and you hit like a child.”

“Jeez, Hap, I thought you liked me,” Tony sighed. “But yes, I know I can do shit all to protect a child, but I have you to do that for me.”

Happy’s eyes widened. “No, Tony. No – absolutely not!” 

“Sorry, Happy. You don’t have a choice.” 

“Mr Stark,” Peter interjected. “I can look after myself. You don’t need to take me to the gala.”

Tony frowned at him. “I insist, kid. You’ll have fun anyway,” Tony assured him. “Now no more arguments, no more questions. Conversation over. Let me work.”

 

And he did work, solidly for four hours. By the time their lunch got delivered, both Happy and Peter had fallen asleep. 

“Wake up, boys,” Tony called loudly, startling the two men awake. “Lunch is here,” he smiled as he handed Peter a sandwich. 

“How’s it going, Mr Stark?” Peter asked sleepily, rubbing his eye in the crook of his arm. 

“Not bad, Pete,” Tony said. “I’ve removed the broken pieces and started scanning them so that I can make the replacements with exactly the right dimensions.” 

“Boss,” Happy called the older man’s attention. “Mary wants to see you,” he said, examining a text on his phone.

Tony’s mood visibly improved. “Tell her to give us two minutes to finish lunch, then she can come down. Happy, take a break, I can handle the kid.”

Happy reluctantly left and they hastily finished lunch. Tony turned to Peter. “You just stay here and pretend to not be from the future, okay?”

Peter nodded. “Okay. Who is Mary anyway?” he asked, throwing the rapper of his sandwich in the bin. 

“She’s the head of our scientific manufacturing and research department,” Tony answered. 

Peter frowned. “Wait… research department? I thought you guys made weapons.”

“We make lots of stuff, Pete,” Tony explained. “We’re just famous for the weapons.”

The lift dinged, signalling its arrival in the lab. 

“Mary,” Tony greeted, rounding the corner, leaving Peter sitting there with his arm laid across the table, the time travel device dismembered and in pieces across the table. 

“Tony, nice to see you,” the woman said, her heels clicking rhythmically as walked across the lab. 

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Tony questioned. 

The sound of the woman’s shoes slowly stopped. “I came to get your signature finalising these projects and to run some ideas by you.”

“So not just because you wanted to see me?” Tony teased, his pout evident in his voice. Peter almost laughed out loud at Tony’s blatant flirting. 

“Sorry to disappoint you, Tony,” she said, in a voice as though she were talking to a young child. To Peter’s surprise, he seemed to recognise the voice now. “Did you get the files I e-mailed to you?” the woman continued.

“What files? I’ve been sort of absent from my computer this morning,” Tony explained. 

The woman’s heels started their clicking again, each one getting louder. “What have you been doing down here then?” 

Peter held his breath as the woman turned the corner.

_Oh shit._

His mother stood there, looking slightly shocked to see him, but not nearly as shocked as Peter was to see her.  
“Oh, hello,” Mary greeted, smiling at Peter. 

“H-hey,” Peter mumbled, trying not to stare too much at his mother.

Tony rounded the corner and let out a little laugh. “Um, well… why don’t I see about those files, huh?” he stumbled as he hurried over to his computer. 

With confusion in her gaze, Mary eyed Peter, taking in his too-large clothing and the watch device still attached to his wrist. “Tony, please don’t tell me you’ve started experimenting on children?” 

“What? No!” Tony protested. “He needed my help fixing that device on his wrist, so I’m helping him.”

Mary continued to frown. “And how do you to know each other?” she queried. 

“He’s my… cousin,” Tony said, winking at Peter. “He’s visiting from DC.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you…?” Mary began.

“Peter,” Peter supplied, surprising himself with his ability to speak. 

Mary smiled. “Nice to meet you, Peter,” she said, before rounding on Tony. “Tones, I really need you too look over these project summaries now though?” 

_Tones_. His mother had a pet name for Tony? Peter was beside himself. Not only did he just find out that his mother had once worked for Tony Stark, but that they were actually pretty close. 

“Okay, dear,” Tony droned. 

Peter had to physically control his cringing. _‘They had better not be flirting!’_ Peter mentally screamed. 

Peter stared as Mary put the papers on the desk by Tony and began to explain them. He wasn't listening in but was merely enjoying the sound of his mother’s voice, which it had been over ten years since he last heard it, until yesterday at least. He had the burning desire to hug her and talk to her and be her son again.

Mary giggled at something Tony said, and Peter noticed how closely they were standing. Their hips kept bumping together as they talked and read over the papers, and they seemed suspiciously comfortable with the physical contact. Tony must have made another joke as he signed the documents, because Mary laughed loudly and clutched his arm, and Tony smiled pleasantly to himself. 

As Mary gathered the paper back together again, Peter hurriedly looked away and pretended he hadn’t been staring at them. 

“Are you going to be at the gala tonight, Mary?” Tony asked as she began too leave. 

“Of course,” Mary smiled at Tony. “I’ll see you there.”

Tony smiled back but didn’t say anything. 

“Bye, Peter,” she called as she headed out of the lab.

“Bye,” Peter said quietly. 

Tony continued to smile as he sat back down next to Peter and recommenced work on the time travel device. 

Peter decided not to bring up that Mary was his mother. In fact, neither of them mentioned her at all. Instead, Tony put on some music, a peculiar mixture of 80's pop and his usual go-to rock music. Tony’s mood had improved so much that he even sang along, which he never usually did in the future (as far as Peter knew). 

They sat in the quiet for hours, Tony turning down the music when he noticed Peter had fallen asleep again, his head rested uncomfortably on his arm. At five o’clock, Tony gently shook Peter awake, greeting the dozy teen with some pain killers and a glass of water. 

“Get those into you, and then we’ll go and get ready,” Tony instructed as he packed away his tools. “I couldn’t get the watch off you, so I put it back together as best as I could, so it won’t draw too much attention tonight.”

“Thanks, Mr Stark,” Peter said, with a yawn and a stretch. 

The pair took the elevator back up too Tony’s suite, where Tony led Peter through the main communal area to a large, luxurious bedroom that must have been Tony’s own. The man frowned as Peter stumbled slightly. 

“Are you well enough to go to the gala?” Tony asked, guiding Peter to sit on his huge, soft bed. 

Peter nodded his head. “I’m fine Mr Stark,” he assured Tony. “I don’t mind going to the gala, I know it will make you feel better.”

With a sigh Tony nodded. “It would. I just want you where Happy and I can see you and keep an eye on you. We won’t stay long I promise.” 

“What… why do you think the guy sent me back to now?” Peter asked, unable to keep the slight fear out of his voice. 

Tony shrugged and headed across his room to his massive wardrobe. “I don’t know, kid, but there must have been a reason, otherwise he wouldn’t have sent you.” Tony emerged from the wardrobe carrying three suits and laying them on the bed. “But don’t worry about it, we’ll send you back before anything bad can happen okay. Now do you want to wear black or blue?”

“What?” Peter asked, looking up from where he’d been staring transfixed at his hands to see Tony holding two suits up for Peter.

“Black or blue?” he asked again. “These are the smallest ones I have, I haven’t worn them in years,” he said, holding each one next to Peter and surveying him. “I’m thinking black. Now, regular tie or bow tie?”

***

“Stop fiddling – you look fine,” Tony berated, pulling Peter’s hand away from his bow tie. “Okay, are you ready to go in?” Peter nodded. “Good. Happy?” He turned in the car to face where Happy was sitting in the driver’s seat. “Your main priority tonight is Peter’s safety, so no drinking. I want you to stick by him, but not too close; boundaries are good.”

“Got it boss,” Happy huffed angrily. 

Tony smiled. “Okay I’m going to go out now – Happy, park the car and then bring the kid,” he said as he opened the car door and climbed out, immediately being swarmed by press. 

Happy grumpily parked the car and barked at Peter to get out. Despite his continued protests on the journey and obvious dislike of Peter, he obeyed Tony’s orders and took Peter into the venue through the back entrance. 

The venue of the SI annual gala was a huge reception hall with a stage at the front and a bar at the back. There were circular tables dotted around the pit, facing the stage and decorated with candles, apart from a large empty space at the back near the bar which was cleared. 

“This way kid,” Happy instructed, leading Peter to a table in the left-hand corner, right in front of the stage. There were six chairs at the table, each had a place card in front of it with a name written in gold lettering. From left to right they read; _Fred Murray, Happy Hogan, (Guest), Tony Stark, Obadiah Stane, Mary Fitzpatrick._

 _Oh god_. Fitzpatrick was his mother’s maiden name.

Peter was going to have to sit at a table with his mother all evening. 

“You’re the guest, kid. Sit down,” Happy snapped, pushing Peter slightly towards the seat labelled _(Guest)_. 

Peter’s nerves were on edge as the room filled with people and press. It wasn’t long before Fred Murray, whoever he was, took his seat and struck up a conversation with Happy.

“Oh, hey, Peter.”

Peter whipped his head round so fast that his neck clicked painfully. 

His mother was walking over to their table in a smart blue dress and wearing a big smile. 

“Hey,” Peter breathed, silently cursing himself for sounding so creepy. 

“I didn’t know you were coming,” Mary smiled as she took her seat across from Peter.

Peter mentally shook himself, trying to get his mind and mouth to work together and not get overwhelmed by the presence of his dead mother. 

“Uh, yeah. Tony just invited me today since I was in the area,” Peter explained. 

“Well, it’s lovely to see you again,” she said.

Before Peter could reply, and smartly dressed man stood up on stage in front of the microphone.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” the man said with a sickly-sweet smile on his face, and the whole room plunged into near silence. “I would like to invite you all to find your seats, the celebrations will be beginning in a few minutes.”

There was a hustle and bustle while people found their seats, but Tony and Obadiah’s seats remained empty. Peter spotted Tony approaching the table from across the room. 

“Pete,” he called before crouching by Peter’s chair. “I’ve got to make a little speech just now, so if you need anything the Happy’s your guy.” Peter nodded, and Tony continued in a whisper. “If anyone asks who you are, then you’re my cousin from DC. If anyone offers you alcohol, then just say no. Okay?” 

“Okay,” Peter assured him, and the man stood up and patted Peter on the back as he made his way back stage. 

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” the man who Peter recognised as Obadiah Stane said into the mic on stage. Peter’s fist curled at the thought of how he was going to betray Tony in a few years. “Good evening and welcome to the Stark Industries Annual Gala.” He paused as the audience applauded. “Thank you. Now, without further ado, I’d like to introduce our favourite, and only, CEO, Tony Stark.” 

Tony jogged on stage to a loud applause and smiled widely as Obadiah gave him a one-armed hug. “Thanks, Obi. And thank you everyone for coming, because tonight is really all about you.” He took the mic off the stand and began to wander around the stage. Peter rolled his eyes. “This gala is held every year as a big way of saying thank you to the people we think have worked hardest for this company all year. Each of you are here because you work incredibly hard and give your best effort to keep this company afloat, and we really appreciate that. Without each and every one of you, this company would sink, and I’d be even more of a mess than I am now.” Laughter rang through the hall. “Seriously, you are the back bone of this company. And tonight is about celebrating all of your achievements and hard work. So, have some fun and enjoy yourselves – you’ve all earned it!” 

Everybody clapped as Tony bowed and left the stage and continued their applause as Tony made his way next to Peter, who casually tried to turn away from all the stares that were heading his way. 

“How was that, Pete? Did it sound rehearsed?” Tony asked as he sat down. 

“No, not at all it was great,” Peter said.

“Good because I made it upon the spot,” Tony laughed. 

Peter caught Mary rolling her eyes at Tony’s comment and almost laughed. 

“Nice one Tony,” Obadiah praised as he took his seat. 

Tony beamed. “Thanks. Hey, have you met my cousin Peter?”

Obadiah squinted at Peter and frowned. “No, I don’t think I have, but it’s a pleasure all the same, Pete,” he said, extending his hand.

Gritting his teeth, Peter took his hand and shook it, nodding at the man. 

“Well, that’s a strong handshake,” Obadiah laughed, though Peter saw him wincing and got some smug satisfaction from the man’s pain as he released his hand. “Ah!” he said, pulling away and beaming at the oncoming waiters and waitresses. “Food at last.”

Peter quietly ate his food and listened politely to the adults’ conversations. Obadiah was joyously retelling a story of Tony’s antics as a teenager, while the man himself laughed along and added some rather unnecessary details. Peter noticed that Tony's wine glass was on a constant cycle of emptiness and fullness, and he was starting to show it. 

He wasn’t really listening to the conversation, but he was vaguely aware that Tony was talking about a particularly wild party from his time at MIT. 

“Tony, please keep this PG,” Mary warned. Peter noticed that she had expressly refused the drink of wine she was offered upon her arrival and was sipping on water instead. “Don’t forget there is a teenager present.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Pete,” Tony drawled, putting his arm around Peter’s shoulders. “Did I make you uncomfortable?” he asked, looking at Peter with apologetic eyes. 

Peter shook his head. “No, it’s fine.”  
“Good,” Tony slurred, smiling dumbly at Peter and ruffling his hair. “I’m going to mingle then,” he said, getting up from his seat to join the cluster of people gathered around the bar and taking his wine with him. 

“I’d better go with him,” Obadiah laughed, but hastened to follow Tony before he could make a fool of himself. 

Peter watched them go. As Tony retreated further away from Peter, and inexplicable knot of anxiety tightened painfully in Peter’s stomach. It brought a wave of homesickness and longing for comfort with it.

“Peter?” his mother called.

He almost fell off his chair at the pang of painful memory that the sound of his mother saying his name brought. 

“Huh?” he questioned, burying the memories as far down within him as he could – now would be a very inconvenient time to start crying. 

Mary patted Obadiah’s empty chair. “Come and sit here, you look lonely.”

With a questioning glance, Peter looked beside him to where Happy and Fred Murphy were tipsily laughing and swaying on their chairs. Happy must have taken advantage of  
Tony’s drunkenness to slip himself a few drinks. 

Peter rolled his eyes and shuffled along into Obadiah’s seat. 

“Men,” Mary jokingly tutted as Happy and Fred exploded into another laughing fit. “Don’t ever drink Peter, it’ll ruin your innocence.”

Peter laughed, even though it might not have been a joke. 

“So, tell me about yourself,” Mary said, smiling at Peter and relaxing into her chair. 

“There’s nothing to tell,” Peter shrugged. 

His mother reached over and jabbed Peter in the arm. “I’m sure there is. Everybody has a story.”

Peter swallowed and looked at his hands. “You wouldn’t want to know mine,” he breathed. He shook his head and plastered a smile on his face. “So, what do you do?”

Mary looked at him with a mixture of sorrow and confusion but answered his question all the same. “I’m head of Tony’s research department in New York. Basically, he got bored of weapons and decided to add a department that could do proper science stuff,” she explained. “It’s quite fun actually, we’re currently working on finding ways of powering the whole company with renewable energy resources.”

“No way, that’s awesome,” Peter exclaimed. 

“Wait, are you a science freak like Tony?” Mary Laughed.

Peter laughed too. “I’m not a freak, but I’ve always wanted to be a physicist or a chemist when I’m older… well, I used to want to be a zoo keeper when I was little.”

His mother laughed again, and Peter smiled. 

They talked for a long time about renewable energy, Mary describing all the experiments her departments were doing while Peter listened intently. 

“I’m surprised you’ve got so far in your research already,” Peter commented, having finally relaxed a bit as they spoke about science. “Most companies haven’t even started realising that they need renewable energy yet.”

“It was Tony’s idea, actually,” she said, looking fondly at where Tony was drunkenly socialising with the huddle of people at the back of the room. “You see, when he’s not drunk, he really is a genius.” 

Peter looked back at his mother to find a smile playing on her lips and a suspicious twinkle in her eye. “Wait… are you two… I mean… are you…”

“What? Dating?” Mary laughed as Peter nodded, the knot of anxiety in his stomach tightening painfully. “No… we babble, but it’s not serious.”

Peter thought he was going to pass out. 

His mother has ‘dabbled’ with Tony Stark. 

Shit. 

Why hadn’t future Tony told him? Did Tony know she was his mother? He must have done. But would Tony really lie to him like that? He hoped not. 

“He’s one of a kind,” Mary continued, not noticing Peter’s inner struggle as she watched Tony dance with some others near the bar. “But… nothing.” 

Peter barely registered her hesitation as he tried to fight the rising panic inside of him. He pulled his features into a small smile and said. “Excuse me…uh… bathroom.”

The room span as he slowly walked towards the toilets, which were thankfully nearby to their table. The music that was playing by the bar seemed to be muffled in Peters ears, though it was shaking the ground with it’s blaring baseline. He somehow made it to the bathroom and locked himself in a cubicle. 

Heart beating loudly in his ears, he slid down the wall to the floor, leaning his head against the cool tiled wall. He took long breaths to try and steady his breathing and erratic heartbeat. 

Peter didn’t know why the thought of his mother having a relationship with his future mentor elicited such a panic in him. Maybe it was the stress of the whole situation with the time travel getting to him. But to be fair, it was a pretty disturbing thought. 

Once he’d calmed down a bit, Peter unlocked the cubicle door and stood by the sink washing his hands. A man walked into the bathroom, and Peter’s spidey sense gave a dull throb, which Peter elected to ignore, despite the steely glare he was receiving from the man. 

Peter left the bathroom and made his way back to where his mother was sitting at the front table. 

“Sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” Mary apologised as soon as he sat down, looking at him worriedly. “I know he’s your cousin and it was weird of me to-”

“It’s fine,” Peter interrupted her. “I don’t mind.” He smiled at her to show that he was fine with it, but he suddenly let out a pained grunt as his spidey sense flared painfully. 

“Peter? Are you okay?” Mary questioned, but Peter had already spun around in his chair. 

His eyes were drawn to the man who he’d seen in the bathroom who was now standing at the side of the room, a shot gun in hand, taking aim toward to crowd of people at the back of the room, or more specifically, towards Tony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the sort of cliffhanger, I couldn't help myself!! I hope you enjoyed the chapter and thank you for all the kudos and comments so far!!!


	4. We Could Be Heroes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your amazing comments and for all the kudos!!! You guys are honestly the best!! Also I'm so sorry about the cliffhanger last chapter, but this one follows straight on form there, so enjoy!!

_“Peter? Are you okay?” Mary questioned, but Peter had already spun around in his chair._

_His eyes were drawn to the man who he’d seen in the bathroom who was now standing at the side of the room, a shot gun in hand, taking aim toward to crowd of people at the back of the room, or more specifically, towards Tony._

 

“Happy!” Peter yelled, but the man was still laughing loudly with Fred. 

Mary screamed as she noticed why Peter was panicking, and almost everybody turned to look at her. The gunman, too, had startled at the sound of the scream and fumbled meekly with his gun. Peter seized the opportunity to rush from his chair, leap onto the table separating him from the gunman and jump down onto the man. 

The man cried out in shock and several new screams echoed around the rooms as Peter saw a commotion of people rushing around the room from the corner of his eye.   
Peter and the gunman lay in a heap on the floor, the man struggling for his gun, while Peter struggled to get it from him. Peter had to practically backflip to avoid a bullet the man aimed at his head but managed to take to opportunity to swing his leg round and kick the weapon clean from the man’s hands. 

The screaming and shouting continued as the gunman managed to roll them over, pinning Peter down and punching him surprisingly hard in the face. The pain that erupted in Peter’s nose and cheek was nothing compared to the throbbing of his spidey sense, and he dutifully lifted his knee sharply, hitting the man directly and precisely in his crotch. 

With a cry of agony, the man collapsed on Peter as his hands automatically moved to cup his injured genitalia. 

Gruff hands pulled the man’s limp body off Peter, while much gentler ones lifted Peter into a sitting position. People were calling his name and asking him questions and gently wiping his face with tissues, which came away red. 

Two voices penetrated Peter’s mind better than all the others, as if they were the only one’s speaking English. Tony and Mary were rushing towards him, calling his name and asking if he was okay. They crouched next to him and started taking over the positions of the gentle hands before them. 

“You’re okay, Peter,” Mary was assuring him as she began wiping the blood from his face and carding gentle fingers through his hair. “We’re here.”

“Are you hurt, Pete?” asked Tony, who was rubbing Peter’s back soothingly. 

Peter took a moment to think about his answer. “I’m fine,” he decided. 

He looked around at the crowd of people encircling them as they huddled on the floor. Tony noticed the anxiety in his eyes, calling for Happy and nodding to the crowd. 

Happy had been looking down at the kid with a mixture of guilt and shock but leapt into action immediately at Tony’s request. 

“Come on, people, give them some room,” he shouted shooing people away with the help of the security personnel. 

As the crowd dispersed, Peter could see the gunman being firmly held on the ground by other security staff, still whimpering and curling protectively around his private parts. 

“Nice hit, Pete,” Tony chuckled. 

“Tony,” Mary chastised, giving him a firm look of warning. 

Tony rolled his eyes. “Come on, lets get you out of here, Pete,” he said, helping Peter to his feet.

***

Twenty minutes later, Peter sat in the front seat if Happy’s car, having finally escaped from the numerous police officers and press reporters who wanted to speak with Peter. He was happy to tell the police what happened, but the reporters only cared about who he was and how he knew Tony, and not the fact that he, a fifteen-year-old, had just taken on a gunman. 

“Stop pulling that away,” Mary berated him as he pulled the ice-pack, given to him by a first-aider, away from his face to inspect the damage in the mirror. His nose had finally stopped bleeding, but it was swollen and bruised, much like his right cheek. There was also a cut stretched along his cheek-bone, that the first-aider had stuck butterfly tape over. 

“It’s cold,” Peter complained as he slunk back into his seat. 

“I know, but it will help with the swelling,” she said, pushing the ice-pack back onto his face with one hand while she steered the car with the other. Mary had offered to drive once Tony had realised that Happy was also drunk, something that didn’t sit well with the billionaire, but that he’d been too tipsy himself to deal with at the time, and so instead made Happy stay behind at the venue to deal with the press as a punishment. 

Tony was now peacefully napping in the back of the car while Mary drove them all back to the SI building and Tony’s penthouse. 

Peter didn’t know that he had also drifted off until Mary was shaking him awake. 

“We’re here, Peter,” she said softly, stroking Peter’s messy hair. “Can you help me get him inside?” Mary asked, gesturing to the slumbering man on the back seat. 

After much shaking and calling of his name, they managed to wake Tony up enough for him to put at least some effort into getting back into the building. Any soberness he’d managed to gain after Peter took on the gunman had left him, and he staggered haphazardly across the car park and into the building, leaning heavily on Peter. The lift ride up to the penthouse was spent with Peter and Mary supporting Tony’s full weight as his swaying body threatened to plummet face-first to the floor. 

“Is he okay?” Peter asked as they lugged Tony towards his bedroom, which was right next to where Peter was staying in the guest room. 

“He’s just tired, he gets like this when he drinks,” Mary assured him, opening the door to Tony’s room and helping Peter to deposit the sleepy man onto the bed. 

“Are you stayin’ ov’r, Mary?” Tony mumbled hopefully into his pillow.

“No, I have to go home,” Mary explained soothingly, but she looked down at the man with sad eyes. 

“Stay,” Tony grumbled, trying to reach out to Mary. 

Mary made a movement as though she was about to clutch onto his hand, but instead she tucked his arm back beside him on the bed and patted his shoulder. “Goodnight, Tony.   
I’ll be round first thing in the morning to check on you.”

“Goodnight,” Tony sighed. 

“Say thank you to Peter for saving you,” Mary commanded as she wandered towards the door. 

“Thank you, Peter,” Tony said. 

Peter smiled. “Goodnight, Mr Stark,” he said, as he followed Mary out of the room, shutting it quietly behind him. 

“Why do you call him Mr Stark if he’s your cousin?” Mary questioned him almost as soon as he’d left the room. 

“It’s -it’s a complicated relationship,” Peter shrugged. 

Mary seemed to accept this excuse, as she nodded knowingly. “Isn’t any relationship with Tony complicated?” she laughed. Peter inwardly cringed. “Well, goodnight, Peter. I’ll see you in the morning.” 

With a slight cough, Peter mumbled, “Night,” and watched as Mary headed towards to lift.

***

Peter awoke to the sound of footsteps going passed his room. He yawned and rolled over, finding that it was only half passed seven and deciding that the footsteps were probably Tony’s or Happy’s, Peter decided to try to get some more sleep before getting up for the day. 

He’d just shut his eyes and let out a content sigh when he heard a voice through the wall to Tony’s room. 

“Tony? Wake up.”

Peter’s eyes snapped open as he recognised his mother’s voice coming from Tony’s room.

“Mary? I thought you left,” Tony mumbled. 

“I did – eight hours ago,” Peter heard Mary explain. “I just came by to see how you were doing; you had quite a bit to drink last night.”

Tony groaned. “I know, but hangovers aren’t my style,” he laughed. “Where’s Peter?” 

“He’s probably still asleep,” Mary said. “Poor kid is probably terrified after last night.”

“I really owe him one, he saved my life,” Tony said, and Peter heard floorboards creaking as though he had just got out of bed. “Maybe I should make him breakfast.” 

“Okay… but, Tony I need to talk to you,” Mary began. 

“Do you know how to make pancakes?” Tony asked, completely ignoring Mary. 

“Uh, yes, but-” 

“We’ll talk later, I promise, but right now I need to make the fifteen-year-old boy who saved my life pancakes,” Tony exclaimed. 

Peter listened as the two left the bedroom and made their way passed his bedroom and to the living area. He left it a few minutes before deciding to get up. 

He went into his bathroom and inspected the injuries on his face he'd obtained the previous night. His nose and cheek were much less swollen now and the cut on his cheek had already partially healed. Peter hoped that the quick healing wasn't too obvious to Tony and Mary.

After he got dressed into the same borrowed outfit as yesterday and slipped on his web-shooters under his long-sleeve shirt, Peter tiredly headed out of the guest room and into the joint lounge, dining room and kitchen. 

“Morning, Pete,” Tony called as he noticed the boy enter the room. 

“Hey, Peter,” Mary greeted with a smile as she stirred the pancake batter. 

The whole scene looked surprisingly domestic, Tony and Mary bustling about the kitchen making pancakes while the news played on the TV in the living room. It made Peter’s stomach twist in sorrow as he watched his mother work. 

“Do you need any help?” Peter asked as he approached the kitchen island. 

Tony put down his knife, which he’d been using to cut fruit, and rounded the island, grabbing Peter’s shoulders and steering him towards the couch. “No thanks, kid. We’ve got this. These pancakes are a special treat for you for saving my life last night. Thanks for that, by the way,” Tony explained. “You just sit here and relax, we’ll make the pancakes,” he said, pushing Peter onto the couch. 

“Are you sure? I can-”

“No thanks, Peter. Just chill, you had a long night last night,” Tony insisted as he headed back to the kitchen. 

Peter huffed in defeat and sank back into the comfy sofa, watching the news playing on the TV.

_“In other news,”_ the reporter began, reshuffling their file paper. _“A gunman was disarmed last night at the Stark Industries Annual Gala in New York by an unnamed fifteen-year-old boy who is thought to be the cousin of Stark Industries’ CEO, Tony Stark. The gunman has been named as Jeffrey Adams, a twenty-six-year old who was employed by the company last May and is currently being held in police custody. Witnesses at the scene have stated that they saw Adams aiming the gun at Tony Stark and Adams has confirmed that Stark was his main target.”_ During the reading, a picture of Jeffrey Adams appeared on the screen, sending a shiver down Peter’s spine as he remembered seeing the man in the bathroom, moments before he'd tried to kill Tony. _“Our correspondent, Claire O'Neil, was at the scene last night.”_

The cameras cut to a recording of a reporter, Claire, standing outside the venue of the gala last night, bustling crowds of people and police officers in the background of the report. _“Only twenty minutes ago in this event hall, a man with a gun was apprehended by an anonymous fifteen-year-old boy and is now being taken away by police after aiming to kill Tony Stark,”_ the reporter explained, while police were interviewing guests and escorting people out of the venue behind her. _“Tony Stark left the scene with the fifteen-year-old mere minutes after the incident, accompanied by a close friend and employee of Stark’s, Mary Fitzpatrick.”_ A blurry picture of Tony, Mary and Peter getting into Happy’s car appeared on screen next to the woman, with Peter’s face censored. _“Stark’s personal bodyguard and chauffeur, Harold Hogan, has forcibly refused to give the teenagers name, merely stating that the boy is Stark’s cousin.”_

The scene jumped to show Claire O’Neil interviewing a woman in a scarlet dress, the caption on the bottom of the screen stating that the woman was a guest at the gala. _“We heard someone scream, and then we saw a man with a gun at the side of the room. Then out of nowhere this kid tackles the guy and they’re wrestling on the floor, the man tried to shoot the kid, but missed.”_

_“And do you know who the boy is?”_ Claire O’Neil asked.

The woman shook her head. _“No, I’ve never seen him before. But it was really brave of him to take on the shooter.”_

The screen cut back to the reporter in the studio. _“The ex-CEO and now business partner of Stark Industries, Obadiah Stane, has addressed the worries and speculation about the events last night in an interview early this morning.”_

A video of the balding Obadiah in a press interview came up on screen. _“We are working with the police to figure out why Adams attempted to carry out a shooting, and how he got so close.”_ Obadiah assured the reporters. _“The safety of our staff and employees is always our top priority, and we will try our best to ensure that something like this never happens again.”_ Maybe it was a trick of the light, or Peter’s tired mind messing with him, put Peter could have sworn that Obadiah’s lip twitched into a sneer for a split second. 

_“And what about the identity of this ‘fifteen-year-old-hero’?”_ one reporter asked, with a hint of snide disbelief in his voice.

Obadiah smiled. _“Tony does not want his name to be released to the public for reasons he has not shared, but that I would think are obvious,”_ he said, looking harshly at the interviewer, though covering it up with a sweet smile. _“But all I know is that that boy is indeed a hero and should be praised for his quick thinking and bravery, rather than have his identity invaded by press.”_

_‘He really does his job well,’_ Peter thought bitterly as the news programme moved on to a different story, but he couldn't help but blush at being called a hero. Of course, being a hero was kind of his job, but it was only ever Spider-man who got called a hero, not Peter Parker. It was nice to be considered a hero as an ordinary guy, and not someone who is genetically enhanced and who's job it is to be a hero. Peter quite liked being an ordinary hero. _'I mean, not all heroes wear capes,'_ Peter thought to himself.

“Peter, pancakes are ready,” Mary called from the kitchen area. Peter blanched at the familiarity of the voice and tone and had to fight back tears at the thought of how long it had been since he’d last heard it.

He forced the tears to remain unshed as he made his way to the kitchen, and to where Mary and Tony were sitting at a little table, each with a plate of pancakes in front of them. 

“Thanks, guys,” Peter mumbled as he sat down opposite them and began eating his own pancakes. They were deliciously sweet and fluffy, and packed with child hood memories; it must have been the same recipe as the one Mary used to make Peter pancakes when he was little. 

“No, Peter; thank you,” Tony corrected him, looking earnestly into Peter’s eyes, a look that was almost foreign to Peter, who was used to future Tony's off-handed comments and emotional detachment. “You saved my life as well as however many others last night with you quick-thinking and bravery,” he said, causing Peter to blush. “Thank you, kid.”

Peter smiled shyly and looked back down at his pancakes. 

“That being said,” Tony continued in a more serious tone. “You did literally jump a table and tackle a man with a gun – do I need to tell you how dangerous that was? He easily could have killed you.”

“But he didn’t,” Peter pointed out in a mumble.

Mary tutted. “That’s not the point, Peter. Tony’s trying to tell you to be more careful and not be so brash, okay?” she said, looking deep into Peter’s brown eyes. Peter could see every imperfection and fleck of discolour in her otherwise flawless blue eyes. 

“Okay,” Peter nodded, drawing his eyes away from his mother’s. He couldn't help but feel like a small child being berated by his parents after doing something stupid and dangerous, and that feeling brought an unusual warmness to his insides.

Peter listened to Mary and Tony idly talk about work and various topics of gossip, simply enjoying being in their presence. When he was around them, Peter felt oddly at home, despite being about eighteen years into the past. 

The lift dinged, and all tree of their heads turned to see Obadiah walking into the room, grinning. 

“Tony,” he greeted in a loud booming voice. 

“Obi,” Tony replied, getting out of his chair to give the man a firm hug. 

Obadiah clapped him on the back. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“Me, too,” Tony laughed. “Thanks for dealing with the press and everything.”

“It’s no problem, it’s what I do,” he said. 

“Do you want pancakes? We just made some,” Tony offered, making his way back to the table. 

Obadiah followed him over. “Oh, no thanks I have to run – hey, you’re that Peter-kid who saved Tony!” he said as he caught sight of Peter. Peter nodded simply, too overwhelmed with anger by Obadiah’s presence to speak. “Geez, kid! We really owe you one. You did a great thing last night, kid,” he praised, clapping Peter on the shoulder. 

“Thank you,” Peter shrugged, forcing his attention back to his pancakes. He could feel Obadiah’s stare burrowing into the top of his head. 

“Has Tony offered you anything in terms of a reward?” Obadiah asked, startling Peter slightly.

Peter froze and looked at Tony, who was wearing a momentarily puzzled look, before winking at Peter. 

“I’ve already agreed to help him with a project he’s working on while he stays with me,” Tony said. “It’s something for school, right, Pete?” he said, giving Peter a meaningful look.

“Uh, yeah,” he said, not missing the frowning look he was getting from Mary. 

“Oh really,” Obadiah asked, in a kindly manner. “You know, Tony, I don’t remember you telling me you had a cousin staying with you?” 

Peter cast a worried glance at Tony, but Tony easily deflected the comment. “It must have slipped my mind,” he shrugged. “Have you seen Happy this morning?” Tony continued, obviously trying to change the subject. 

“Uh, yeah he was hanging around the lower levels when I arrived, I think he’s trying to avoid you,” Obadiah said, easily falling into the change of conversational direction. “He probably feels guilty about last night. Anyway, I must head off, lots to do. See you later, Tony,” he called, heading over to wait for the lift. 

“I must get going too, Tony, my hours start soon,” Mary said, getting up and taking her empty plate to the sink before heading towards where Obadiah was waiting. 

“So soon?” Tony whined. “I’ll make sure to shorten your hours.”

Peter saw Mary’s mouth open, as if to reply, but then her face fall and she turned away.

“Why don’t you head down to the lab, Peter,” Tony said, drawing Peter’s attention away from his mother. “I want to try to find Happy before I head down, feel free to make a start.”

Peter nodded and followed over to where the lift had just arrived. “Thanks for the pancakes,” he called over his shoulder as he entered the lift with Obadiah and Mary. 

The three of them were silent as the lift descended and eventually stopped, Mary happily got out of the lift, saying, “See you soon, Peter.”

As the lift doors shut again, Peter’s spidey sense let out a small twang, and Peter instantly stiffened. 

“You know,” Obadiah said suddenly in the silence of the lift, and Peter had to use all his might to stop himself from jumping out of his skin. “I’ve known Tony for over a decade now, and never once has he mentioned a cousin named Peter,” he said, in a cynical tone. “What’s your surname, kid?”

Peter fumbled. He couldn’t say Stark, surely. He didn’t know Tony’s mother’s maiden name. He couldn’t say Parker, that could potentially complicate things if his mother found out and later met Peter's dad, Richard Parker. He would just have to make a name up.

“Uh, Leeds,” he answered, stating the first surname that came to mind, which just happened to be his best friend’s surname. 

Obadiah looked at him strangely. “You had better not be playing tricks with Tony, kid. Then you’ll have me to answer to,” he threatened, causing Peter to flinch. The lift stopped again, and Obadiah brushed into Peter on his way out. 

“I’m not playing tricks with Tony,” Peter called after him, thankful that the room beyond the lift was empty. “Unlike some people,” he added, giving Obadiah his best intimidating look.

The lift’s doors closed just as Obadiah rounded on Peter with a look of mixed shock and anger. Peter really didn’t know where he’d gotten the courage to say something like that, but he let out a relieved sigh as the lift continued its journey down to the basement level. 

Peter struggled to breathe evenly as he thought of the possible consequences of that one snarky comment he just had to slip out. He didn’t even know how long Obadiah had been planning to bin off Tony and take over the company, what if he was still loyal to Tony at this point? What if he was genuinely just worried for Tony?

He dived out of the lift as soon as it reached the lab, and almost immediately began disassembling the watch once again, even more eager to get it fixed and get the hell out of there than before. 

“Hey, Pete,” Tony called as he exited the lift. “I couldn’t find Happy, but he’ll turn up eventually.”

“Hmm,” Peter hummed distractedly, continuing to work on the watch. 

Tony eyed Peter suspiciously but shrugged off his worry in favour of starting work on repairing the watch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's a bad ending to the chapter, i'm sorry. Anyway i hope you enjoyed it!!


	5. Ain't nothing but a mistake

Peter seemed much more focused and determined than the previous day. The boy deftly refused to take any naps, in favour of helping Tony to make the new pieces for the watch. He watched transfixed and almost agitated as Tony used blow torches and all sorts of crazy tools to create the pieces. The process was annoyingly slow for Peter, who had become almost mad with longing to go home. He’d decided that the less time he spent in two thousand, the less that could go wrong and potentially ruin his and Tony’s future.  
At first, Tony found Peter’s eagerness to help to be quite useful, setting him to do meagre tasks that would hep him. But Peter rushed through the task and watch Tony work with concentrated eyes that were beginning to freak Tony out. He sat too close to Tony for comfort and jiggled his leg up and down in impatience, causing Tony to lose focus and slip up. Tony had put this down to homesickness and decided to distract Peter by sending away from the lab for a while so that Tony could work with out interruptions and distractions. 

“Hey, Peter,” Tony asked the agitated boy tentatively as he set down his tools. “Why don’t you go upstairs and try to find Happy for me, I have a couple of things I need him to do?” He tried as best as he could to make it not sound like he was trying to get rid of Peter. 

Peter hesitated, looking quizzically at Tony. “Um, yeah sure. As long as you don’t need me,” Peter mumbled.

“I’m good thanks Peter,” Tony smiled. “And why don’t you bring us some food back with you when you come back?”

With a nod, Peter stood and went to go and find Happy. If he was honest, Peter was nervous about running into Obadiah after what he said to him this morning. Peter double checked he still had his web-shooters on, not that he could really use them against Obadiah, but they made him feel safer and more confident as he strode out of the lift onto the first floor. 

Peter wandered aimlessly around the floor, only half paying attention to his objective to find Happy and was otherwise preoccupied as he gazed in awe at the different labs and offices. The tech was impressive for it being eighteen years out-of-date in Peter’s eyes. 

However, Peter’s presence did not go unnoticed, and many confused stares were being directed his way and one man even asked if he was lost. He decided that Happy was not on that floor and headed up to the next one. This floor seemed to be filled with offices and meeting rooms, none of which contained Happy Hogan. 

At the end of one long corridor, the final office was cut off with police tape and a sign that read ‘Police Investigation underway, do not disturb’. Peter moved closer to the office, seeing that the name tag on the door listed the workers that usually used the office, including one ‘Jeffery Adams’, the shooter at the gala last night. 

Suddenly, the office door opened, and a police officer walked out carrying an armful of manilla folders. Peter pretended to be passing by but saw through the doorway the steely face of Obadiah Stane as he spoke seriously with one of the officers. 

Peter immediately felt himself break out in a cold sweat as he increased his pace down the corridor and towards the lift. He pressed the button to call the lift an unnatural amount of times as his patience ran out, longing to breathe freely again once he was a safe distance away from Obadiah Stane. 

He stopped himself from diving straight into the lift when it arrived, waiting until all the people had left before rushing in and desperately pushing the button for the next floor up. 

“Wait!” someone shouted, and immediately a hand was clutching the closing the door, forcing it to open again. 

For a fleeting moment of terror, Peter thought it might be Obadiah, but the man who entered the lift, out of breath, was much younger than Obadiah and with much more hair on his head. 

“Sorry,” the man said, straightening his business suit and pushing the button for the doors to close. “Hey, you’re the guy who tackled Adams, aren’t you?” He said. “I’m Fred Murray, we sat at the same table.”

“Oh yeah,” Peter said, remembering the man’s face and remembering him laughing heartily and drunkenly with Happy last night. 

Fred smiled at him before looking guiltily at his shoes. “I’m sorry, it’s sort of my fault that Happy got drunk and didn’t see the shooter. I feel awful, I didn’t mean for him to drink so much, and then Adams came and-”

“It’s fine,” Peter assured him, smiling earnestly at the man. “No harm done, apart from Happy probably having a hangover,” he joked. 

The man laughed. “And – uh – your face,” he added, gesturing to where there was still a bruise and unhealed cut on Peter’s face from where he got punched. 

Peter shrugged it off. “I don’t mind. Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

Fred nodded and smiled at Peter. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Peter replied as the lift arrived at his floor and he stepped out. “See you around, Mr Murray.” 

He continued his search for Happy but didn’t find him on either of the next two floors he searched. Peter silently cursed Tony for having not invented JARVIS or FRIDAY yet, who would have made the search much easier. 

However, Peter did enjoy exploring the old SI building and took his time looking round, particularly on the lab levels. He also assumed that Tony was enjoying some Peter-free-time; they were basically still strangers at this point, and Peter knows he can be a but overbearing at times, particularly for people who didn’t know him well.

Peter was meandering around a floor (he’d lost track of the numbers), when he heard a voice call his name. 

“Peter?” 

The voice came from an office he’d just been passing, so he quickly turned back and saw his mother standing by the door way to the office. 

“Hey,” Peter greeted. 

“What are you doing wandering around on your own?” she asked, a curious smile on her face. 

Peter nervously pulled his sleeves over his hands. “Uh – Tony sent me to look for Happy,” he said. “Have you seen him?” 

Mary thought about this for a moment before answering. “No, sorry. But I could call him,” she offered. “Come in, I’ll give him a call.”

He followed Mary into her office nervously and looked around. It was big a spacious, much bigger than the other offices he’d seen on his travels. The walls were decorated with various artifacts, like a huge periodic table and a Framed quote from Albert Einstein, and in the middle of the room stood a huge desk with a massive old computer and various folders and copies of documents. 

“Take a seat,” Mary invited as she sat behind her desk and began searching for her phone. 

Peter sat quietly in a chair in front of the desk and watched as Mary called Happy on an old flip-phone. 

“Hey, Happy,” she said, smiling at Peter. “Peter is up here in my office saying Tony sent him to look for you…okay… I don’t know, why don’t you ask him…? Okay, bye Happy.” She put the phone down and looked at Peter. “He’s going to go down to the lab and see what Tony wants.”

“Okay, cool, I’ll – uh – go then, thanks,” Peter stuttered.

“Wait,” Mary said, stopping Peter as he’d begun to raise out of his chair. “Do you mind if we talk for a minute?”

Peter blanched. “Um, yeah sure.”

Mary smiled at him but appeared to be surveying him closely. “Are you really Tony’s cousin?” she asked, cautiously. 

A moment of hesitation befell Peter. He felt bad for lying to Mary, and he wanted more than anything to tell he the truth and warn her about her future, but Peter knew that that wasn’t an option. So, he nodded his head and smiled at Mary. 

“Okay,” Mary said, and took a deep breath as if she was steeling herself to tell him something. “Can I ask a favour of you?”

Peter nodded again. 

“Well, I’m going to quit my job and-” she began simply. 

“What?! Why?” Peter exclaimed in shock, although he soon realised that it shouldn’t have been that much of a shock as he knew Mary hadn’t worked for Tony during his childhood. 

“Because I’m taking a job at Oscorp,” she explained, but something in Mary’s tone told Peter that that was not the whole truth. “And… I can’t be with Tony anymore.” 

Peter was dumbfounded, wondering why Mary was entrusting him with this knowledge. Of course, Peter knew their ‘dabbling’ would have to cut off eventually, at some point pretty soon Mary would get with Peter’s dad and… 

_Of course!_

Peter almost slapped himself for his stupidity. Richard Parker, Peter’s father, worked at Oscorp, which is where he met Peter’s mother. Mary had to move to Oscorp so she could meet Richard. 

“So,” Mary continued. “I know this is going to… upset Tony, and when he’s upset… he doesn’t deal with his emotions in a healthy way, if you know what I mean.” 

He nodded, knowing all too well about Tony’s history with alcohol. 

“So, can you… look after him a bit when I tell him and when I go?” she asked, looking at Peter with kindly mothering eyes that were beginning to swim with tears. 

“I…” Peter hesitated. “I’m going back home soon, but I will help him as much as I can,” he promised her. “When are you going to tell him?”

Mary blinked her tears away. “Tomorrow, I think,” she said. 

“Okay,” Peter said taking breath. “I… I’d better get back to Tony.”

“Peter,” Mary called as he got up and began to leave the room. Peter stopped and looked back at her. “I’m sorry to do this to Tony, but I have to.”

Peter sighed. “I know,” he said, before leaving the room and heading back to Tony’s lab. 

Happy was with Tony in the lab when he arrived and recited a well-rehearsed apology the moment he stepped out of the lift. 

After many reassurances from both Tony and Peter, Happy finally calmed down enough to let Tony and Peter get back to work. They worked on making new parts of the watch for about ten hours until Tony suggested that Peter went to bed, which he vigorously refused. Eventually, Tony allowed him to stay as long as he took a nap on the sofa across the lab from where they were working. 

Peter was beginning to feel his fatigue slowing him down, so he allowed himself to be led over to the sofa and welcomed the blissful sleep that encompassed him. 

***

He was awoken by the soft dinging sound the lift made when it reached a floor and the soft clicks of high heels. The smells of motor oil and residual smoke reminded Peter that he was in Tony’s lab, asleep on the sofa. For a moment, his brain supplied the conclusion that he was visiting the Avengers Compound, which he had taken to doing since he’d gotten closer with Tony after the Vulture incident. This would mean that the heels belonged to Pepper, who would have come to berate Tony for spending all night in the lab.  
But the voice that hesitantly called out was not Pepper’s, and Peter came to the harsh realisation that he was still stuck in the past. 

“Tony?” 

That wasn't Pepper, that was definitely his mother’s voice. 

Peter let out a sleepy sigh and decided to not intrude on their business by pretending to be asleep again, if he was lucky, he would get a few more minutes of shut-eye. 

“Morning,” Tony said through a yawn, and Peter felt guilty that he’d traded sleep for helping Peter to get home. 

The clicking heels got closer until they stopped. 

“Is Peter asleep?” Mary asked. Peter kept his eyes shut and tried not to move as he felt their stares fall on him from across the room. 

“Yeah, I’ve been working in here all night and he hasn’t stirred once,” Tony commented. “He sleeps like a log.” 

Peter almost let his act drop then just to prove Tony wrong, but the stiffness in his limbs and ache in his head told him not to. 

“What can I do for you?” Peter heard Tony ask. 

There was a sigh and then the sound of… squelching? Peter cracked his eyes open and immediately slammed them shut again as he saw his mother kissing Tony Stark. 

_Ew._

That was not a sight that was going to leave his mind anytime soon. 

But… hadn’t Mary told him that he was planning on breaking up with Tony? So, why had she come all the way down to the lab just to kiss him? 

Peter was relieved when he heard them break apart, if anything further had begun, Peter thought he’d have to feign a fit or something to divert their attention. 

“What’re the tears for?” Tony asked softly. Only then did Peter peer between his eyelids curiously and saw Tony wiping tears off Mary’s face. “What’s wrong?” Peter had only ever heard Tony adopt such a caring and gentle tone when talking to Pepper or Peter himself when Tony noticed he was particularly stressed. 

Mary didn’t say anything, but simply reached over to the table behind her and pick up two manilla folders. She handed one to Tony, keeping the other clutched to her chest.

“What’s this?” Tony asked, opening the envelope and pulling out the contents. “More things for me to sign?” 

Mary shook her head, letting her brown hair bounce. “It’s my three-week notice,” she whispered.

Tony stared at the paper in front of him disbelievingly. “But-but… I don’t understand,” he stuttered. In other circumstances, Peter would have laughed at the fact that _The_ Tony Stark just stuttered. 

“I’m leaving,” Mary said, with more confidence this time, brushing her tears away.

Peter saw Tony fumble for words. “But… why?” he asked, looking imploringly at Mary. “You’re great at your job. I thought you liked it here, I thought you liked your job. I can change it if you’re not happy. I’ll fire anyone that’s upsetting you. I’ll-”

“No, Tony,” Mary interrupted. “It’s not that.” Peter’s interest spiked as he saw her reaching for the second envelope. She hesitated before handing it over to Tony. Tony looked Mary in the eye before opening the envelope and withdrawing its contents. Peter saw his eyes widen as they looked over the paper. Mary stood on her tip-toes and spoke directly into Tony’s ear, Peter could only hear what she said thanks to his enhanced hearing. “I’m pregnant,” she whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha ha ha, I'm evil for ending the chapter there! Sorry!  
> Thanks for the comments and kudos, they make my day whenever I log on here!  
> See you next week for the next chapter!  
> -Rowan


	6. Close to You

_“No, Tony,” Mary interrupted. “It’s not that.” Peter’s interest spiked as he saw her reaching for the second envelope. She hesitated before handing it over to Tony. Tony looked Mary in the eye before opening the envelope and withdrawing its contents. Peter saw his eyes widen as they looked over the paper. Mary stood on her tip-toes and spoke directly into Tony’s ear, Peter could only hear what she said thanks to his enhanced hearing. “I’m pregnant,” she whispered._

Peter almost fell off the sofa, but skilfully managed to cling to the edge, not that either of the adults were paying him any attention at this point. 

Tony looked as shocked as Peter felt. He couldn’t seem to comprehend what was happening. But to Peter, it made sense now. He hadn’t put much thought into why Mary had been outside the hospital the other day, but it must have been to get a scan or something. And she mustn’t have been drinking at the gala because she knew she was pregnant. But he couldn’t figure out why that meant she needed to leave her job at Stark Industries. 

“Is…” Tony began in a small voice, breaking off Peter’s train of thought. “Are they mine?” 

 

_Fuck._

 

Peter hadn’t thought of that.

Mary hadn’t met Richard yet. And she and Tony had been together for a while.

“Yes,” Mary replied.

But this didn’t make sense. 

If the baby was Tony’s, then the baby can’t be Peter. Richard Parker was Peter’s father. But… Peter must have been conceived around July or August for him to have been born in April. But how was that possible if Mary hadn’t met Richard yet, and she was pregnant right now. Unless…

Unless Tony was Peter’s father.

But that was impossible. 

Richard Parker was Peter’s father. Not Tony Stark. 

Maybe the Time Travel device had put him into an alternate universe? _Yes._ That was it. He was in an alternate universe and in the universe Peter grew up in, Mary never even worked for Tony and Peter is definitely Richard’s son. Who’s to say that Mary’s baby is even Peter in this universe? It could be a different child. Yes. That was right. 

_It is an alternate universe,_ Peter told himself, trying to make himself believe it. _It is an alternate universe. It is an alternate universe._

“But why are you leaving?” Tony asked Mary.

Mary sighed. “Do you really think you’re ready to be a father?” she asked, not unkindly, but in a gentle tone. 

After a moment of thought, Tony said nothing and remained completely silent. 

“I want to keep this child,” Mary explained, taking hold of Tony’s hand. “But I don’t want to put pressure on you to become a dad when you’re not ready.”

“So, you’re going to raise them on your own?” Tony questioned, looking at Mary as though she’d gone mad. “I still don’t understand… how’re you going to….” He paused for a long time before his face fell. “Your breaking up with me.” It wasn’t a question – it was a realisation. 

Mary had tears rolling down her cheeks again but nodded her head slowly. “It’s the only way.”

“But it’s not!” Tony practically shouted making Peter jump, but again, neither of them noticed. “We can fix it, we can figure something out.” 

“Like what, Tony?!” Mary cried tearfully. “I know you and I know you wouldn’t trust yourself with a child. I know it’s not your fault, and you had a bad relationship with your dad and that you feel guilty about that every day. So, I’m trying to help you by leaving. I thought you’d want me to. Because you always say how you wouldn’t be good with kids. I know you couldn’t trust yourself,” she ended her rant with a loud sob. “I know that you know that this is the right thing, but if you change your mind – if you want to be a dad – then I will stay.” Mary leaned in and gave Tony a small kiss before she headed across the lab and into the lift. 

***

Tony said nothing as she left and didn’t move a muscle. After a minute of silence in the lab, Peter sat up slowly.

“Mr Stark?” he asked hesitantly. The man didn’t reply. “Mr Stark?” Peter tried again a little louder. 

“Not now, Peter,” Tony replied in a husky voice, unlike his own. 

Shrinking back a little, Peter obeyed, watching Tony cautiously as he continued to stare at whatever had been in the envelope. Suddenly, Tony threw the two envelopes and their contents down on the table in front of him and briskly moved through the lab and to a mini-fridge in the corner. As he opened it, Peter saw that it was filled with booze. 

“Tony,” Peter warned. “I don’t think you should-”

“I said not now!” Tony snapped angrily, causing Peter to flinch.

Peter was about to storm off, when he remembered that he’d promised Mary he’d look after Tony and make sure he was okay after he got the news. And it was some freaking big news. 

“Tony, don’t-” 

Peter yelled in shock as a full bottle of beer nearly hit his head and collided with the wall behind him, where it smashed and started leaking beer across the floor. Peter silently thanked spidey sense that had warned him of the bottle headed towards him, allowing him to duck out of the way. He gaped at Tony, who was staring back at him angrily, clearly having just thrown the bottle at Peter. 

“What the fuck did I just say?!” Tony demanded. “I said _not now!_ I don’t have time for your stupid problems today! You can get home on your own!” 

Tears welled in Peters eyes as the man he’d begun to see as a father figure yelled at him. 

“Now get the fuck out of my lab!” Tony yelled, hurtling a spanner at him, which Peter thankfully dodged.

Peter rushed out of the room as Tony cussed and swore to himself. He entered the lift and slid to the floor as the doors closed, sobbing quietly to himself and breathing deeply. It had escalated so quickly that Peter’s head was spinning. 

After a few minutes of deep calming breaths, Peter realised that he hadn’t pressed a floor button on the lift. He reached up from his spot on the floor and pushed the button for Tony’s penthouse. He pushed himself up and out of the lift when it arrived, heading to the guest room he’d been staying in. Peter changed into his suit and pulled his borrowed clothes over the top, stuffing the mask in his pocket, before grabbing his phone and rushing back to the lift.

Peter hesitated before pushing any buttons. Part of him felt bad for leaving Tony in such a state, but a more overwhelming part of him reminded him that Tony had just thrown a beer bottle at his head. He angrily jabbed the button for the ground floor and waited impatiently for the lift to stop. He spotted the large glass doors of the exit and rushed towards them, barging past other Stark employees and only mumbling quiet apologies out of habit. 

Peter didn’t stop once he got outside, instead he began walking briskly down the street in who knows which direction, heading who knows where. Had he not been so fuelled with anger and betrayal, Peter would have taken the time to look at how the familiar streets used to look before he was born, but right now he didn’t care. 

Deciding that he needed to get away from the hustle and bustle of the New York streets, Peter ducked into an empty alleyway and began ascending the wall of the building next to him. It took him some time, but he eventually got to the top and sat on the edge of the roof so as to look at the buildings around him and the streets below. The building was one of the tallest around, so he could see quite a way and the people on the street seemed tiny. 

Usually, when Peter was up high on a building, or else swinging through the streets, he felt like all of his daily problems were minuscule and insignificant. But now, though he’d expended all of his anger at Tony by climbing the wall, and he felt somewhat overwhelmed about all he’d heard this morning. 

Suddenly, Peter’s spidey sense let out a painful throb in the base of his skull, and he heard a crashing sound behind him on the roof top. Spinning round, he saw a man wearing all black and with glowing purple goggles covering his eyes standing mere metres away. The same man who’d sent Peter back in time. 

Peter jumped to his feet, subtly checking that his web shooters were still on his wrists. 

“You! What are you doing here?” Peter stuttered, trying to act as though he was confident. 

The man smirked. “I could ask you the same thing, Peter.” 

“How do you know my name?” Peter enquired, sounding only a little scared.   
The Goggle-man shrugged. “Let’s just say that we’ve met,” he said, mysteriously. “And I’m here to check up on you, Peter. I wanted to see how you’re doing in the past. I thought you were staying with Stark?”

“I was,” Peter bit out.

“What happened?” the Goggle-man asked.

Peter glared at him. “It’s none of your business.”

Goggle-man laughed heartily. “And what if I told you I already knew what’s happened?” 

“How could you know?” Peter challenged. “You weren’t there.”

The man just smiled evilly and chuckled. “I have my methods,” he shrugged. “I’m sure you have some questions about what you found out this morning.”

Peter looked up at him, wondering if he was trustworthy. “Is...is this an alternate universe?”

“What makes you think that?” Goggle-man asked, seeming genuinely curious. 

“It’s just, my mum’s pregnant with Tony Stark’s child when she should be pregnant with me. But then, she hasn’t even met my real dad yet,” Peter explained, sounding childish even to his own ears.

The Goggle-man smiled at him again. “This is not an alternative universe, Peter. This is our universe. Your mother is pregnant with you.”

Peter stared at him incredulously for a few seconds before grinning. “Yeah right. Tony Stark is not my father,” he said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I think I’d know if he was.”

“Would you?” the man challenged, a mischievous look in his eye. 

_Would I?_ Peter asked himself. He had Richard's last name, but he never resembled him, at least not like he did his mother. His father had blue eyes, the same as Mary, but Peter had brown eyes. His father had dirty blond hair, and was burly and tall, but Peter was petite and slender. Maybe Richard wasn't Peter's father, and the first seventeen years of his life had been a lie. Even so, it didn't guarantee that Tony Stark was his father, it could be anyone for all he knew.

“You see, Peter. You have a choice to make today," the Goggle-man explained, eyeing Peter carefully. "I’m going to send you back in time to 5am this morning. When you get there, you will have the opportunity to stop Mary from giving in her resignation notice and persuade her to give Tony the chance to father their child. This would mean that Tony would bring you up with Mary, who would not die in a plane crash. Or, you can leave Mary be and let her move to Oscorp, meet Richard Parker and let them pretend that he was your father all along.”

Peter frowned. “I don't even know for sure that Tony's my dad," he pointed out. "Besides, I already know which version of the future is going to happen."

“Not necessarily,” Goggle-man shook his head. “You can always change your future, even if, for you, it’s the past. If you choose to let Tony and Mary raise you together, when you go back to the future all your memories will be replaced and you will be returned to an alternate future where Mary and Tony are your parents.” 

Peter stared at the man in shock. Not only had he just been told that he was the child of Tony Stark, but also that he had the power to change the future (his past) to get a childhood that would undoubtedly better than the one he’d had. For one, his parents wouldn’t die when he’s five and leave him to live with his aunt and uncle (who apparently, he’s not even related to). 

“Why don’t I help you decide?” the Goggle-man offered. “Of course, you already know what one of the outcomes turns out like, so why don’t I show you what it would be like if you were raised by Mary and Tony.” The man offered his arm for Peter to take.

But Peter hesitated. "I still... still don't believe that Tony's my father... it's too... unrealistic," he admitted. 

“Then let me show you," the Goggle-man offered. "I’m not going to hurt you. See,” he showed Peter the watch device on his wrist, so similar to the broken remains that were strapped to Peter’s wrist, except that the numbers glowed purple instead of green. “This one’s different to yours; this allows me to travel into alternative futures, whereas yours can only go forward and backward in time. It’s perfectly safe. I made it myself.” As though that was supposed to reassure Peter. 

“But the one you gave me broke,” Peter supplied.

The man laughed. “It was meant to. It was the only way I could think of to get you to interact with Stark.” He moved closer to Peter and offered his arm again. “Hold onto me tightly, Peter, we won’t be gone for long.”

Peter reluctantly took hold of the goggled man’s arm and watched curiously as the man reset the numbers on his watch. “We’re going exactly fifteen months into the alternate future, Peter,” the man explained. “Ready?” he asked Peter once he’d set the watch. Peter nodded, and the man pushed the face of the clock inwards, and both of them were surrounded by purple light

Again, Peter felt the sensation of his feet leaving the floor and the rush of blood in his ears. It took longer for his feet to find solid ground than it had last time, and when the purple light faded, Peter lost his balance and stumbled. A strong hand gripped his upper arm and steadied him. Peter looked round and saw the Goggle-man too close for comfort, and he quickly pulled his arm out of the man’s grip. 

“You don’t trust me?” the man asked, seemingly offended. 

Peter huffed humourless laugh. “You blasted me back in time without my consent; so no, I don’t really trust you,” Peter pointed out. 

He straightened his clothes and looked at their surroundings. They seemed to be in the same spot on the same roof as they’d just been on a few moments ago (or technically a fifteen months ago). Although now the sun was setting on the horizon, casting an orange flow across New York. 

“We’d better get going,” the Goggle-man said, leading Peter to the fire-escape leading down the side of the building and into the alleyway below.   
“Where is it we’re going?” Peter asked nervously as he followed the man down the steps. 

“We’re going to the New York SI building,” Goggle-man explained. “Tony, Mary and you live in the penthouse part-time and in California part-time, so that Mary can be near her friends and Tony can be near his and the main SI bases.”  
Peter decided not to think about how absurd all of this was, because it was only worsening his headache. 

They reached the alleyway and headed through the streets towards the SI building. Peter was surprised at the lack of notice they were receiving from people on the street considering Goggle-man was – well – wearing glowing purple goggles. 

Goggle-man seemed to be in a rush to reach the SI building, so Peter couldn’t fully appreciate his surroundings. Before he knew it, they were outside the SI building.

“Follow my lead,” Goggle-man instructed quietly as they walked through the automatic doors. The lobby was relatively empty, but Goggle-man still firmly kept his eyes on the ground and steered Peter over towards the automated entry gate. He put an ID card into the scanner, which Peter guessed must have been stolen, the gate opened and let the pair through, and yet again, Peter was surprised that no body noticed a man in purple goggles sneaking a teenager into the building. 

They entered the lift and Goggle-man selected the floor below Tony’s penthouse.   
“We won’t be allowed entry to the Penthouse,” the man explained in answer to Peter’s puzzled expression. “We don't have a private pass, and they’ve cracked down on security a lot since you were born.”

When they arrived, the floor was empty, considering everyone had probably gone home for the night. Peter followed the man through the floor and to a stairwell on the other side of the floor. Though, the door in front of the stairs was locked, Goggle-man entered a pin number into the device locking the door, and produced a set of keys out of nowhere and unlocked the manual lock on the door. Peter guessed that Tony had installed the extra lock to keep his family extra safe, being the paranoid mess he was when it came to people he cared about.

He turned to Peter and pushed a finger to his lips, indicating for him to be quiet as the ascended the stairs. There was another door at the top which looked to be reinforced, but Goggle-man unlocked it with a different key and pin code and slowly pushed it open. Peter followed the man into penthouse and quietly closed the door behind himself. 

They seemed to be at the end of the short corridor that had bedrooms and guest rooms leading off it. Peter could hear the sound of a TV playing from the other end of the corridor as Goggle-man led him to a door leading off the corridor, which Peter recognised as the room Tony had let him stay in in 2000. Goggle-man quietly opened the door and held it open for Peter. 

As he entered the room, Peter almost gasped as he saw the change the room had undergone. Even in the dark lighting, he could see that the walls were the same white colour as before but decorated with painted caricatures of cartoon animals. There was a comfy-looking armchair in the corner and a toys chest next to it. On the floor was a play mat with characters from the jungle book on it and several jungle book character plushies scattered across it. There was a small chest of draws against one wall with a changing mat and a packet of nappies (diapers) on top. The only source of light came from a small night light on the bedside table that was a dome shape and had a spinning hood with stars in, and it was projecting the stars across the ceiling and walls. Next the bedside table was a cot with a mobile of stars and moons hanging above it. 

Tentatively, Peter approached the cot and peered in. Wrapped loosely in blankets was a little baby boy with a small amount of light-brown hair and in a red onesie, clutching a teddy bear tightly, which Peter recognised as Baloo the bear from _The Jungle Book._

Peter was only vaguely aware of a presence next to him as he observed the sleeping baby and nearly jumped out of his skin when the Goggle-man spoke next to him. 

“This is Peter James Stark,” Goggle-man explained. “He’s seven months old, and the son of Tony and Mary Stark. 

“Is…is that me?” Peter asked quietly, still looking at the little baby. 

“Yes,” the Goggle-man answered. “This is what you could have had, or you could still have given you chose to help Mary persuade Tony.”

Peter looked longingly at the peacefulness of the baby. “Why did they call him Peter?” he asked before he could help himself. 

“They decided that they owed the continuation of their relationship and entire parenthood to you,” Goggle-man explained. "And you saved Tony's life at the Gala."

Peter felt… unusually honoured. Tony Stark named his child after Peter. Okay, technically Tony Stark named his son after his son, which didn’t really make sense. Really, Peter was named after himself. 

“Come on,” Goggle-man said, pulling Peter towards the cupboard in the corner of the room. “We need to hide.” 

Goggle-man and Peter got into the cupboard and closed the door in front of them with a snap. Almost immediately, the baby Peter started crying from his cot. The slats in the cupboard door allowed Peter and Goggle-man to see when Tony Stark entered the room and approached the crying baby. 

“What’s the matter, baby boy?” Tony said gently. He carefully picked the sobbing baby up and inspected his nappy. “You don’t need changing, you were fed like half an hour ago… did you just have a bad dream?” Tony asked. The boy snuggled into Tony’s chest and grabbed at his shirt, crumpling the fabric in his tiny hands. “It’s okay, Peter. I’m here.” 

The big Peter watched as Tony took the sleeping boy over to the armchair and sat with baby Peter clinging to his chest. Tony lovingly played with the tufts of hair on the baby’s head and smiled to himself. Both Tony and the baby Peter looked beautifully peaceful, despite the baby’s continued sobs. 

“Calm down, Pete. Everything’s fine,” Tony assured him. He rubbed soothing circles into the child’s back. “You’re a brave boy, so let’s stop these tears, buddy.” When nothing else worked, Tony sighed. “How about a song, kiddo. Would a song help?” Obviously, the boy didn’t answer, but Tony began to sing quietly to the toddler anyway. 

_“The other night dear, as I lay sleeping  
I dreamed I held you in my arms  
But when I awoke, dear, I was mistaken  
So I hung my head and I cried.  
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine  
You make me happy when skies are grey  
You'll never know dear, how much I love you  
Please don't take my sunshine away."_

The baby boy’s sobs had died down to sniffles, but he still clung tightly to Tony.   
“Still not asleep, buddy?” Tony asked quietly. “How about another one? what about your favourite?  
 _“Why do birds suddenly appear  
Every time you are near?  
Just like me, they long to be  
Close to you.  
Why do stars fall down from the sky  
Every time you walk by?  
Just like me, they long to be  
Close to you.  
On the day that you were born the angels got together  
And decided to create a dream come true.  
So they sprinkled moon dust in your hair of gold and starlight in your eyes of blue…_ your eyes and hair are brown, but it didn’t fit with the song,” Tony added on the end, laughing to himself. He carefully stood up and moved over to the cot, placing the now sleeping baby down on the mattress and layering blankets on top of him. “Goodnight, Peter. I love you.”

Tony quietly left the room and shut the door behind him.   
Peter could feel tears falling freely down his cheeks as he stared into the room beyond the cupboard. He’d never seen Tony act so… lovingly towards anyone. This couldn’t possibly be the same man who’d thrown a bottle of beer at Peter’s head or ignored his texts and calls for months after the battle in Germany. 

He sniffed and rubbed the tears from his eyes with the sleeves of his jumper.   
“It’s time to go, Peter,” Goggle-man said, and Peter obediently took his arm and watched as he re-set the watch to the time that they’d left. 

The purple glow and sensation of falling hardly affected him this time, and he didn’t even stumble when they landed in the same cupboard they’d just left. Goggle-man opened the door and moved to switch on the light. They were no longer in a child’s nursery, but in the plain guest room that Peter had been staying in in tow thousand. 

Goggle-man stood opposite the still crying Peter and surveyed him sorrowfully. “I’m sorry, Peter,” he said sadly. He checked his watch and looked up at Peter “It’s five in the morning, in about two hours, Mary will come up here to look for Tony, that’s when you act, if you choose to, of course… I’ll leave you to make your decision. See you soon.” 

And with that, the man left in a flash of purple light. Peter let himself flop onto the bed and curl into a fetal position. 

Though he’d hesitate to admit it, Peter had grown to see Tony as a sort of father figure, and to have him actually be his father was like a dream come true. He knew that Tony wasn’t perfect, but that’s part of the reason why Peter liked him so much, because he was funny and sometimes an absolute asshole. But he was so real and so typically human that Peter couldn’t help but feel safe around him.   
Peter rubbed his eyes and pulled the mask out of his pocket, needing someone to talk to. 

“Hey, Karen,” Peter sniffed. 

“Hello, Peter,” Karen’s voice replied. “I’m detecting that you are currently in distress. This is likely due to the fact that you have recently visited an alternate future and witnessed an emotive moment between yourself and Mr Stark.”

“That sounds a little weird, Karen, but yes. How did you know I’d been forward in time?”

“The sensors in your suit allow me to be aware of everything that is happening around you even when you don’t have your mask on,” Karen replied. 

Peter snorted. “That’s kind of creepy.”

“I’m sorry that this makes you uncomfortable, I will send a report of your opinion to Mr Stark once we get back to two thousand and eighteen. For now, would you like me to go through some breathing exercises with you?” Karen said.

“No thanks,” Peter replied, rolling over to lay on his back. “I just wanted someone to talk to.”

“What would you like to talk about?” Karen asked.

Peter sighed. “Can I just bounce some ideas off you about what the Goggle-man said?”

“Of course, Peter.”

“Okay,” Peter began. “So, on the one hand I could just leave things be and go back to the future and it’ll all be normal and stuff. But on the other hand, I could persuade my mum not to quit her job or break up with Mr Stark and they’ll raise their child, who is me, together and my life is infinitely better, and my parents don’t die and… wait, did you know that Mr Stark was my dad?” he asked Karen in an accusatory tone. 

“No, Peter,” Karen replied. "I was not aware that you were related to Mr Stark in anyway."

“Oh, well yeah that’s a thing; apparently he’s my dad,” Peter said with a shrug. “Anyways, so – where was I – oh yeah. So, my parents don’t die when I’m five, but then I never meet my dad – or Richard Parker, I mean,” Peter realised sadly. “I’m not even a Parker, Karen, I’m a Stark. I’m not even related to Uncle Ben and – wait… if I don’t ever get put under the care of Ben and May, then Ben wouldn’t die. I mean I wouldn’t know him or May, which is sad, but then they can have the long child-free life they wanted, right? But I love May. And I loved Ben and my dad – Richard I mean and... this is so confusing.”

“Can I point something out Peter?” Karen asked.

Peter shrugged. “Go ahead.”

“If you decide to change the future to the alternative one, it is highly probable that you’d never become Spider-man,” Karen said. 

“Aww, man,” Peter whined. “But I love being Spider-man. And think of all the people I’ve helped that wouldn’t have been helped if I wasn’t Spider-man.”

“You’re right,” Karen agreed. “That little girl from last week might never have gotten her shoe out of that tree.”

Peter huffed. “Are you trying to be funny, Karen?” he asked. “Don’t answer that, I just mean, I’ve done important things as Spider-man. I’ve… I stopped the Vulture and I helped Mr Stark in Germany.”

“That’s true, Peter. You can be very helpful,” Karen assured him. 

“If I choose that future, I’d just be an ordinary kid – well, I would be raised as Tony Stark’s child, which would be pretty cool. Being the only child of Iron Man would be insane, but…” Peter bolted up-right in his bed. “Wait; would Tony ever become Iron Man in in that alternative future.”

Karen took a moment to replied. “That is also highly unlikely, but more probable than you becoming Spider-man.”

“Okay, okay,” Peter mumbled, his head spinning. “So, if he might not become Iron man then he also might not save New York from the Chitauri in two thousand and twelve, and he also might not save the world form Ultron – hmm, Ultron also might not exist, but you get what I’m saying.”

“Your saying that Iron Man has saved a lot of people,” Karen supplied. 

“Yes, and if I choose to save my mum and Richard Parker and Uncle Ben, then I’m putting millions of other lives in danger,” Peter exclaimed. 

“According to my calculations, that statement would be correct, Peter.”

Peter put his head in his hands, more tears flowing down his cheeks on the inside of his mask. “So, I don’t really have a choice. I have to let mum, Richard and Ben die to save millions of others.”

“I’m sorry, Peter.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, I'm an emotional wreck thinking about Tony raising Peter. Also, You Are My Sunshine and Close to you (Carpenters) are throw-back songs to when my parents sang me to sleep when I was a baby, and I couldn't pick just one to put in this chapter, so you were blessed with both. I also wanted to include Morning Town Ride by The Seekers, which is another one my parents would sing, but it's more unknown than the others (still a proper banger though). So, I hope this chapter hasn't emotionally ruined you like it did when I wrote it!  
> Unfortunately, I have nearly finished writing that last few chapters of this fic, and it won't be long until they're all uploaded. So, if anyone has any ideas for other fics they'd like me to write, then please let me know in the comments. Also, I'm of possibly doing sequel to this fic at some point, but I'm not 100% sure if that's something i want to do yet.  
> Anyway, thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!!


	7. When the Going Gets Tough

Peter lay on the bed for hours, Thinking of ways to manipulate the future and save the people he loved without killing millions of others. Time travel was confusing even for Peter, who had genius-level intellect. He'd heard scientist on the TV saying how going back in time and doing something as minor as step on an insect could result in a completely different series of events in the future, and even result in you never existing. However, some scientist have said that if you went back in time, there would be somethings that would be impossible to change. For example, Peter would not be able to help Mary convince Tony to father the child, because that is not what actually happened in Peter's past.   
These thoughts swarmed Peter's brain, giving him a horrible headache, until he heard footstep in the lounge. 

"Tony?" Mary's voice called.

Peter held his breath. This is when he would go out there and face Mary, and change the future. 

But he didn't.

Peter stayed curled up on his bed, his heart pounding painfully in his chest. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he heard Mary move down the landing and towards Tony's bedroom. He couldn't help but think that by doing nothing, he was essentially killing his mother, as well as Richard and Ben Parker. 

"Tony?" Peter heard Mary call in Tony's room, before giving up and heading back through the penthouse. 

Suddenly, Peter flinched. He jumped up from the bed and clutched the door handle. Peter had convinced himself that the only possible outcome of Tony being his parent was millions of deaths and total devastation... But what if the world was made better by changing the future. There was a possibility, though small, that they could live happily ever after. Peter was on the verge of opening the door and going after Mary, but he hesitated for just a second. 

And in that second... Peter heard the doors of the lift close. Mary was gone. The opportunity had gone.

Peter slumped back onto the bed and cried himself back to sleep.

***

He awoke what must have been hours later to the sound of someone making a ruckus in the communal area. He groaned and pulled the mask off his face and feeling the tightness of dried tears on his face. Peter rubbed his eyes and got out of bed to investigate the noise that had awoken him. Before leaving his room, Peter checked the alarm clock next to the bed and found it was nearly one in the afternoon.

He sleepily made his way down the corridor and into the communal area of the penthouse and saw Tony routing through the fridge, before moving to the cupboards. Even from this distance, Peter could smell the alcohol on his breath and he could see the shake of his hands and sluggish movements. Peter didn’t know whether to leave him be or help him. 

“…Tony?” Peter tired quietly, but it was enough to grab the man’s attention. Tony whirled around to face Peter, who involuntarily flinched, the memory of the beer bottle still fresh in his mind. 

“Pet’r?” Tony slurred. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, like he’d been crying. Peter found it hard to imagine that this was the same man who’d sung ‘You are my sunshine’ to a crying baby. 

“Um… hi?” Peter said carefully, not sure what kind of state or mood Tony was in. 

Tony didn’t really seem to realise that Peter had spoken and continued his searching of the cupboards. 

“Why don’t we get you some water?” Peter suggested. He slowly approached the sink, trying to keep as far from Tony as possible while he got a glass of water for the man. 

To be honest, Peter was scared that Tony would lash out again. He was most scared because he cared about Tony and didn’t want him to have to deal with the guilt once he was thinking clearly again. Peter didn’t want Tony to hurt him, because he knew how much it’d hurt Tony. 

Peter tentatively held out the glass for Tony. “Here,” he offered. 

Tony lazily waltzed over to Peter and accepted the glass. “I’ve really fucked up, Peter,” he drawled. “What am I going to do?” Peter’s heart clenched at the helplessness Tony conveyed. 

“Why don’t you take a nap and we’ll sort everything out when you wake up?” Peter suggested, carefully prying the empty glass from Tony’s hand. He put an arm around Tony’s shoulder and led him to his bedroom, supporting him as he drunkenly swayed and stumbled. Tony was asleep almost before he was in the bed, already snoring loudly. 

“Geez, how much did you drink?” Peter muttered as he pulled a blanket over Tony and set a glass of water on his bedside table for when he woke up. 

Once he’d convinced himself that Tony would be okay, Peter headed down to the lab, intent on continuing to fix the time-travel device. However, when Peter arrived in the lab, the place was such a mess that he could hardly take a few steps into the room. Whole work tables and desks had been overturned and random pieces of equipment and experiments lay broken on the floor. The room was stuffy with the lingering scent of alcohol and perspiration.

Peter let out a weary sigh and carefully picked his way though the lab, heading around the corner to find that the pieces of the broken device remained untouched on the main table and the computer in the corner still whirring away. For some reason, in his drunken rage, Tony had not touched any of the tools or equipment they’d been using to help mend the time-travel device, and Peter was honestly touched. Perhaps Tony felt guilty for his actions this morning? 

With a small smile on his face, Peter started playing some of Tony’s choice music off his (ancient) MP3 player over the speakers in the room and began tidying the room. 

It only took an hour or two, but some of the stuff was broken beyond repair, so Peter had to just leave them on the tables for Tony to sort out when he felt better. He’d done a relatively good job of tidying, and even cleaned up the smashed bottle of beer Tony had thrown at him.

When he was finished, Peter quietly sat down and began working on the watch device. They’d managed to make replicas of almost all the damaged pieces by now, but there was one tricky piece of electrical plating that they were yet to construct. Peter decided that it couldn’t be too hard, and he may as well make a start while Tony was out of action. 

Peter let the task and the music consume his mind, trying to push out any thoughts about the disturbing conclusion he’d come to earlier. He worked hard, singing along to songs occasionally when he recognised one, and keeping his full attention on configuring the electric plating. 

After many hours, Peter was roused from his state of utter concentration by the sound of someone entering the lab.

“Tony?” they called, and Peter looked up from his work to see Happy coming around the corner. “Oh.”

“Tony’s asleep upstairs,” Peter told him with a small smile. 

“Asleep? It’s the middle of the day,” Happy said incredulously.

Peter shrugged. “He had a bit too much to drink this morning, he was in a bit of a state.”

“Why was he drinking in the morning?” Happy asked, throwing his hands up in dismay. 

With a shrug, Peter turned back to his work. 

“He has meetings to go to, what is he playing at?”

“I don’t think he’s up to going to meetings,” Peter supplied, looking at Happy earnestly. 

Happy sighed. “I’ll leave him be then, make up some excuse for him,” he mumbled to himself as he left the room. 

Not long after that, Peter heard another person entering the room and calling for Tony. 

“He’s asleep upst- oh!” Peter interrupted himself as he saw his mother head around the corner. 

Mary’s face fell at the sight of Peter. “How is Tony?” 

“He’s okay, I think,” Peter told her. “He got a bit upset, and a bit drunk, but he’s sleeping it off now.”

“I’m guessing you know what made him so upset,” Mary sighed. 

“Yeah…”

Mary collapsed into the chair next to Peter. “I had to do it, Peter. You know he’s not ready for something like that,” she said, and Peter could hear the tears in her voice. 

“I understand,” Peter said, trying to keep his voice from wobbling as he thought of the life he could have had that the goggle man showed him. “Tony’s not really father-material yet.”

“That’s what I thought,” Mary said, staring off into the middle distance. “He’s too… unstable. He’s verging on being an alcoholic. I didn’t think he’d want to be a father, not with his rocky relationship with his dad.”

“I think you’re right,” Peter said, absentmindedly fiddling with the sleeves of his shirt. “But I think he’s just upset that you made the decision for him.”

Mary considered this for a moment before sighing. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll talk to him about it tomorrow when he’s calmed down a bit.”

Peter nodded, and when neither of them spoke again, he turned around to continue his work on the device. 

“How’s your project going?” Mary asked, watching him curiously as he tried to connect the minuscule wires in the watch to the electrical plating. 

“Good,” Peter said simply. “We just need to reassemble it correctly and then I can go home.” 

“So soon? Why don’t you stay with Tony longer? You seem to get along well?” Mary queried, frowning at Peter.

With a shrug, Peter rubbed his neck. “I need to go back home, my family don’t really know I’m here,” he explained. “It’s complicated,” he added in response to Mary’s confused look. “And I’ve already interfered in Tony’s work too much.” 

“You haven’t,” Mary insisted. “He loves having you around, it’s like he’s a new person.”

Peter was flattered, but played it off casually. “Yeah well, I have to fix some things at home. I am going to see Tony again pretty soon, though.”

“Good,” Mary smiled. “You do wonders for the man. Anyway, I’ll probably see you again before you leave, but don’t go without saying goodbye okay?” she requested as she got up and ruffled Peter’s hair.

He was too choked up to speak, so he simply nodded and watched as Mary disappeared around the corner and out of the lab. 

One thing Peter was definitely dreading was saying goodbye to his mother for the last time. It would be the last time he saw her if the time travel device works. At least the last time he’d said goodbye to her, when his parents dropped him of at Ben and May’s, he hadn’t known that it would be the last time he’d see her. Peter’s brain was furiously trying to think of ways in which he could spare his mother’s life without distorting the future too much, but all of them lead to the same conclusion of Peter not becoming Spider-man and Tony not becoming Iron man, which would ultimately lead to millions of deaths. 

Peter had so much power in his hands right now. A single sentence to the right person could kill millions of people in the future. He was playing God by even daring to interact with the people around him.

***

Peter finally gave up for the night several hours later and headed up to Tony’s penthouse in search of food. He settled for making himself two peanut butter and jam sandwiches and jumped on the couch in front of the TV to eat them, mindlessly watching a showing of _Back to the Future._

It wasn’t long before Peter heard a door open and someone approaching down the hall. He spun around to see a rather frazzled looking Tony meandering into the living room, his feet dragging behind him. He threw himself down onto the couch next to Peter and looked up at the boy with large eyes.

“I owe you an apology,” he said quietly, but earnestly. Tony took a deep breath and put his hand on Peter’s knee. “I was upset and angry and… I lashed out. I shouldn’t have. So, I’m sorry I shouted, I wish I hadn’t, I’ll make it up to you.” 

Had Tony said this a few hours earlier, Peter would have been tempted to refuse his apology and give Tony a piece of his mind. However, Peter knew that Tony’s apology was sincere and that, had Tony been in his right mind, he would never have treated Peter like that. 

“It’s okay,” Peter said, meeting Tony’s eyes and smiling slightly. “I know you didn’t mean to do it… and I know why you did it; I’m sorry but I heard what Mary told you.” 

Tony frowned for a minute before shrugging and turning his attention to the TV. “I know what curiosity can do, it’s okay,” he assured Peter. “Do you think she’s right? About me not being ready to be a father?”

Peter thought carefully about his next words. “I… I think that you still have a lot to learn.”

“That’s rich coming from a seventeen-year-old,” Tony laughed.

“What I mean is,” Peter continued through a smile. “I don’t think it would be a good idea to jump on the parenting bandwagon right now.” 

Tony sat up straight and looked Peter straight on. “Tell me how it plays out,” he said. “You’re from the future so you know what happens. Do I raise the kid with Mary or does she go it alone?” 

“She’s not alone, per say,” Peter mumbled trying to explain this in the best way possible. 

“What happens to the kid?” 

How easy it would be to tell Tony he was his son. Four simple words could change everything. ‘I am your son.’ Then maybe future Tony would make contact with him a bit earlier, maybe not act like he was an inconvenience. But alas, Peter could not tell him. 

“I think Mary raises him,” Peter said, pretending to think about it. “Well, I know the public don’t know about him.”

“Him?” Tony asked, quirking an eyebrow. 

Peter’s eyes bulged. “Shit… did I say him? I’m pretty sure I said… them.”

“I have a son? You know him?” Tony asked, shocked and excited.

“Well, yeah. I put two and two together and figured out who it is,” Peter explained. Technically he wasn’t even lying.

Tony looked away and sank back into the sofa. “Wow,” he breathed. 

Peter awkwardly sat there while Tony looked thoughtfully into the middle distance. 

“Does he have a good life?” Tony asked out of the blue.

“The best,” Peter replied without hesitation, carefully observing the man before him, who would later become the most prominent role-model and father figure (or actual father, I guess) in Peter’s life. “Do you want a sandwich?” he asked, offering Tony the second peanut butter and jam sandwich.

Tony smiled and accepted the sandwich. “Thanks,” he said as he took a bite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is basically a filler chapter, I'm sorry but not much happens. The next chapter will be better, I promise.


	8. Pumped up Kicks

"How is it that you know me? I mean... me in the future," Tony asked as he worked on fixing the watch device in the lab. 

"I met you when I was about fifteen through... work, as I guess you could call it," Peter explained. 

“So, what’s your job?” Tony asked as he continued placing the improved pieces of wires and plating into the watch. There was gentle rock music playing lowly in the background and Peter was absentmindedly playing _Galaga_ on Tony’s computer. “You said you fight crime in New York, but why?”

Peter shrugged. “It’s kind of my responsibility.”

“But why?” Tony inquired further. “You’re seventeen, aren’t you too young to be doing that?”

“It’s not like an actual job,” Peter explained. 

“So, you’re like a vigilante?” Tony guessed, pulling his glasses up for a second to look at Peter. 

“Kind of.” 

Tony hummed thoughtfully but returned to work. “Why do you do it?”

Peter shuddered slightly. He hadn’t even told future Tony the real motive behind why he fought crime, he’d just spieled off some stuff about responsibility and his powers, but it would be too difficult to explain his powers to this Tony. 

“My uncle,” Peter explained, taking a deep breath. “My parents died so I lived with him and my aunt, and one night we argued, and I ran off. I saw a man robbing a shop a few blocks from the apartment, and I could have done something to stop it, I know I could have stopped him… but I didn’t because I was angry and selfish. Anyway, a few seconds later I hear a gunshot go off. Turns out my Uncle had been trying to follow me, to bring me home, but he’d got caught up in the robbery when he tried to stop the guy himself. The robber shot him. And he died in my arms. And I feel like it’s my fault…” Peter trailed off. He hadn’t realised that his game had ended or that he could no longer hear Tony working behind him.

“Shit, kid,” Tony said, and Peter could feel his pitying look. “I’m sorry.”

He hastened to move the conversation onward. “So, I fight crime so that the same thing doesn’t happen to anyone else. Uncle Ben was like a father to me, and I don’t want for anyone else to go through the same pain as I did when I know I can help stop it.”

“That’s a lot of responsibility on very young shoulders,” Tony commented.

“I suppose,” Peter shrugged, spinning on his chair to face Tony. “I can handle it, though. And I enjoy it, so that’s a plus.”

“As long as you’re begin safe, kid, I don’t mind what you do,” Tony smiled and pulled his goggles back on. 

“I’m always safe,” Peter laughed. “And I have you to watch my back.”

Tony frowned at him before shaking his head. “I’m not even going to ask.”

Peter laugh just as the lift across the room gave a ding, signalling its arrival in the lab. Obadiah Stane walked around the corner with a wide grin on his face. 

“There you are, Tony,” he greeted the man, gripping his shoulder. “Happy told me you were out of action yesterday.”

Tony laughed. “You know how it is, you drink too much too early and you sleep the day away.”

“Well, you can’t go doing that tomorrow, you have interviews for your new assistant, remember,” Obadiah reminded him. “I’m going back to California today, but I was hoping for a private word before I left.” He not-so-subtly jerked his head in Peter’s direction. Peter felt his blood boil.

“Of course,” Tony said happily. “Would you mind giving us a few minutes, Pete?” he asked. 

“Sure,” Peter bit out. “I’ll be in the penthouse.” 

Peter could feel Obadiah’s steely gaze on his back as he left the lab. Fury bubbled in him as the lift ascended and omitted him into the penthouse. He grumpily made his way to the kitchen and began prepping a sandwich for himself.

Peter had never had to tackle his hatred of Obadiah Stane in the future because the man was already dead by the time the public found out about his true nature. Tony never spoke about Obadiah, and Peter could bet that the memories of the man he’d considered an almost father-figure were painful to him. 

So now he was in the past with a very much alive Obadiah, Peter didn’t really know what to do. He didn’t know if Obadiah was already planning Tony’s downfall, but Peter couldn’t help but think that the shooting at the gala the other night might not have been some random guy angry at Tony. It would be all too easy for Obadiah to hire a hit-man to try to kill Tony. Obadiah had also seemed pretty pissed with Peter the other day in the lift. 

Peter was just finishing making his sandwich when his spidey sense let out a painful twang and Peter dropped to the floor behind the kitchen island. Gun-shots rang out and bullets pummelled the cupboards where Peter had just been standing. 

The noise of gunfire was deafening to Peter’s enhanced hearing, and his ears remained ringing even when the shots stopped. Peter pushed his back against the kitchen island as his heart pounded painfully in his chest. He could hear whispers and footsteps over the ringing in his ears. 

His instinct told him to run for the elevator, but he’d never make it as the men seemed to be positioned in the hallway across the room. Peter’s only option was to try to use his web-shooters, which were thankfully safely on his wrists, to web up the guys’ guns. 

He could hear the men moving closer to the kitchen island, probably hoping to corner him by coming round either side. Peter readied himself, and as soon as one man rounded to corner he simultaneously shot a web at the man’s gun while back flipping over the counter. He landed with practised ease on the sofa, gracefully falling to the floor as his momentum upturned the sofa, but the men were fast and began firing again almost immediately. 

Peter dodged the bullets and threw webs at the men, trying to disarm them. 

“Is that stuff coming out of him?” one of the six men said as Peter successfully yanked the gun from his hands with his webbing. 

He leapt closer to his attackers, bullets still raining down around him. Peter stuck one man’s hand and gun firmly to the counter-top while round-house kicking another, watching as the gun flew out of his hand and webbed it to the floor. 

Peter grabbed onto the now gun-less man and threw him forcefully at another. The fell to the floor with pained grunts. 

“My bad, that looked painful! I’m sorry, guys,” Peter apologised as he webbed them down. 

One gun-less man rushed at Peter with a dining chair raised, and Peter dodged as he brought it down viciously, and swiped the man’s legs from under him, webbing him to the ground. 

The man webbed to the counter by his hand tried to kick and punch Peter with his free hand, but Peter grabbed the man’s flailing fist and threw it back at the guy, knocking him out.

There were now only two men left, and only one of them had a gun. The man himself, was looking at Peter in horror and his hands shook.

“Shoot him!” the other man yelled. He grew impatient with his team mate and seized the gun just as Peter went to shoot a web at the gun-man, knocking him to the floor. Peter was about to grab the gun and punch the man who’d just acquired the gun when he shot straight at Peter.

Fortunately, Peter’s ever-reliable senses alerted him to the danger and he managed to dodge the bullet…nearly. Peter felt a harsh sting of pain as the bullet grazed his bicep.

“Dude…” Peter hissed as he kicked the gun out of the man’s hand and punched him hard in the face. “Not cool,” he mumbled as he webbed the guy up. “Who put you up to this?” Peter asked, hunched over the man groaning on the floor. The man laughed evilly but remained silent. “Okay, I didn’t want to do this, but…” Peter pressed his foot into the man’s stomach, just enough for it to be uncomfortable but without causing any damage. The man wheezed and squirmed under his foot. “Start talking,” he demanded, daring to press down a little harder. 

“It was…” the man wheezed, and Peter let up a little. “Stane. Obadiah Stane… That moron told us you knew too much or something and hired us to kill you…” 

“Thank you for your co-operation,” Peter said honestly. “I’m sorry if I hurt you,” he added before firing a web at the man’s mouth to stop him screaming. 

For a moment, Peter contemplated what to do. It was clear that Obadiah had only been down to the lab to get Peter to leave and allow the guys he hired to get a shot at him. 

“Stay here, I’ll be back in a minute,” he instructed the group of semi-conscious and webbed up men in the room. Peter pushed the button for the lift and waited as it ascended to the penthouse. The doors opened slowly and his spidey sense flared. Peter took a step back when the doors parted and revealed a smirking Obadiah Stane. 

However, as soon as Obadiah’s eyes landed on Peter and the carnage behind him, the smirk faded into a glare. 

“How…?” Obadiah started. He grumbled unintelligibly before striking Peter across the face with the back of his hand. 

Peter was so shocked, he hadn’t recovered quick enough, and he suddenly felt hands grabbing the front of his shirt and shoving him harshly so that his back slammed painfully and harshly into the kitchen counter. 

“How did a little shit like you take down six trained hit-men?!” Obadiah growled, pressing closely and painfully into Peter’s body. Peter could see every detail in his face, from the wrinkles marking his eyes and forehead to the hints on anger and loathing present in his eyes. “Who are you?!” he yelled, lifting Peter up by the collar, only to slam him back against the counter, causing him the wheeze in pain. “I know you’re not Tony’s cousin! Tony isn’t related to anyone with the surname Leeds! So, tell me, Boy! Who are you!?” He punched Peter hard in the face to punctuate his demands.

Peter spat blood that had been pooling in his mouth into Obadiah’s face, and he recoiled in shock. 

“My name is Peter,” he said in a firm, strong voice. “And that’s all you deserve to know.” Peter easily swiped the hands that had been holding his shirt away and pushed Obadiah back with a kick to his stomach. 

The man landed on the floor painfully hard and groaned. “You son of a bitch!” he spat. “Are you trying to steal company secrets? Trying to kill, Tony? What’s your plan?” 

“I think that’s your plan, Obadiah,” Peter sneered. “I know you’re planning to take over the company.” 

Obadiah’s face paled and he shifted uncomfortably on the floor. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, you’re just a kid!” 

“Oh yeah?” Peter bit back, moving closer so his was standing over Obadiah. “It was you who told Jeffery Adams to kill Tony, wasn’t it?” Okay, that was a long shot, and Peter was not totally certain that that was true, but he really needed to intimidate Obadiah. 

Fortunately, Obadiah’s eyes widened in shock and dismay. “No, it – how did you…” Obadiah began, shaking his head. Then, to Peter’s surprise, the man began laughing. Not just little chuckles, either, full belly laughs. “Oh, I underestimated you, Peter,” Obadiah laughed. 

“What – uh, I’m trying to be intimidating here, stop laughing,” Peter whined, frowning at Obadiah. 

Obadiah just laughed harder. “You know, Tony seems to really like you,” he commented when his laughs died down, but he was still grinning. “It’s a shame, really.” 

Peter only had time for his frown to deepen before his spidey sense screamed at him to _move_ before Obadiah pulled a gun from beneath his jacket and fired it at Peter. 

Peter leapt into the air and stuck to the ceiling to avoid the bullet. 

“What the hell?” Obadiah breathed, staring at Peter with anger and confusion.

“Plot twist, am I right?” Peter smirked.

Obadiah grimaced and started shooting again, Peter had to crawl expertly across the ceiling to dodge the bullets. He quickly managed to twist around to shoot a web and yank the gun out of Obadiah’s hand. 

“The fuck…?” Obadiah mumbled as he watched the gun fly from his hand and into Peter’s. 

Peter was quick to web the guy’s hand to the floor and jump down from the ceiling. 

“Well, this has been fun and all, but I’d appreciate it if we could wrap this up now,” Peter said lightheartedly. He put his foot on Obadiah’s arm where it was outstretched and attached to the web. “I don’t usually like to get violent, but I know what you’re planning to do to Tony, so right now I will not hesitate to break your arm,” Peter practically snarled at the man, applying an uncomfortable amount of pressure to the man’s outstretched limb and watching as he winced in pain. “Now, I won’t tell Tony you tried to kill me; I’m just a nice guy like that. I also won’t tell him that you hired these goons to try and kill me,” he added, gesturing to the six men still tied up by his webs. “In return I want for you to leave me alone until I go home. If you try to tell Tony some bullshit about me being an evil assassin who wants to steel his company’s secrets and kill him, then you know what I am capable of, and I won't hesitate to make you regret it,” Peter said, pressing on the man’s arm a little harder so that he gasped in pain. 

“Okay…” Obadiah gasped. “Okay, do what you want.” 

Peter released the man’s arm. “Good, follow my lead,” he instructed, pulling at the webs to release the man’s hand. For a moment, Peter wondered why the man was being so compliant, but then he realised he was still holding the man’s gun in one hand. He suddenly got an idea. 

“I’ll keep hold of this, shall I?” Peter smirked. Obviously, he would never dream of using it, and even having a gun in his grip was making Peter uncomfortable, but Obadiah didn’t need to know that. Peter put the gun in his pocket and led Obadiah into the lift. 

“Follow my lead when we get to the lab, okay? Tell Tony that I was attacked before you arrived,” Peter said politely as the lift descended. 

Obadiah just grunted in affirmation and rubbed his wrist. Peter quickly pushed away the feeling of guilt bubbling up inside him by reminding himself of what this man was going to do to Tony in years to come. 

To his dismay, the lift stopped before it reached the lab and the doors opened to reveal a smartly dressed Mary Fitzpatrick. 

“Hello, Mr Stane… Peter?” Mary said as she spotted Peter stood beside Obadiah. “Oh my God! What happened to your face?” Mary exclaimed. 

“Uh-” Peter began, nervously.

Mary interrupted him. “And your arm?!”

“Wha – oh!” 

Peter had practically forgotten about the bullet that grazed him, and now realised that his sleeve was graphically coated in blood oozing from the wound. 

“I… uh, we need to speak to Tony,” he stuttered, although it was certainly not an explanation. 

“You need medical attention,” Mary mumbled, before entering the lift fully and impatiently jabbing at the sub-basement floor button. “What happened?”

“We’ll explain in a second,” Peter said, nodding to the lift doors as they opened into the lab. “Mr Stark?” he called to the room. 

“What is it, Peter?” Tony asked, in a slightly impatient tone as Mary, Obadiah and Peter strode through the lab. Peter didn’t miss the way Tony stiffened at the sight of Mary, and Peter supposed that they hadn’t spoken since Mary had shared her news with him the other morning. 

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Peter said, side-eyeing Obadiah and subtly indicating that he should explain.

“There was an attack in the penthouse,” he explained, in a highly convincing rushed and authoritative voice. Peter supposed he was so good at acting because he’d been doing it around Tony for so long already. 

Tony frowned at him. “What do you mean attack?”

“Six men entered the penthouse somehow and tried to kill Peter, I arrived as he was taking down the last guy – this kid can really hold his own,” Obadiah continued, patting Peter on the back. Peter almost raised an eyebrow at how convincing Obadiah was.

Mary gasped, and Tony looked puzzled. “Are you okay?” Tony questioned Peter with a worried look in his eye.

Peter nodded. “I’m fine, but I think you should - ”

“No, you’re not,” Mary protested, and straightened Peter’s injured arm out for Tony to see. Peter winced as it stretched the skin around his wound. 

“Jeez, Peter,” Tony muttered as he grabbed a clean cloth from a nearby table and held it to the wound. “Obi, put the building on lock-down, find Happy and send him to the penthouse. Make sure no-one leaves this building and start asking the receptionists if they let anyone unauthorised into the building. If not, then start looking at CCTV - remind me to install cameras in the penthouse, as well, I don’t care about privacy anymore anyway.”

“Of course, Tony,” Obadiah said earnestly. Peter made sure to give the man a stony look of warning before the man turned around.

“Mary,” Tony turned too the woman as Obadiah left. “Can you pass me the first-aid kit, it should be by my computer.”

Mary hurried to retrieve the kit. 

“What happened to the guys that attacked you? Are they still up there?” Tony asked as he gestured for Mary to take over holding the cloth to the wound as he fumbled with the first-aid kit. 

Peter almost smiled as he felt Mary’s soft hands gently hold his arm, applying slight pressure to the bullet wound. “They’re either unconscious or tied up.” Tony frowned at him.“If I take you up there, I’ll explain,” Peter assured him. 

“You’re not going anywhere until we fix your arm and your face,” Tony reprimanded. 

Peter rolled his eyes. “It’s not even that bad,” he moaned. It was true. The wound on his arm was small, and although it was a little deeper than he was comfortable with, it would be healed by tomorrow. His face also, was not fatal. His nose and lip had stopped bleeding minutes ago, and the worst he’d have was a nasty bruise. Although, he would be lying if he said he wasn’t enjoying Tony and Mary working together to look after him. 

Tony dabbed anti-septic on his arm while Mary found a roll of bandages to wrap it in. Tony took the bandages and thanked Mary, though didn’t make eye-contact with her the entire time. Peter shrugged his jumper off and allowed Tony to carefully bandage his arm, the mechanic’s hands surprisingly gentle against Peter’s skin. Mary found some baby wipes in the kit and cleaned up Peter’s face.

“There you go, buddy,” Tony said, tucking in the end of the bandage. “Let’s go upstairs now.”

On the way up to the penthouse, Peter explained what had happened as best he could. Tony seemed frazzled, but kept a frontier of calmness about him, while Mary’s gaze was filled with worry. 

Upon arrival at the penthouse, the lift doors opened to reveal the carnage beyond. Mary gasped, and Tony cursed. 

The men were still tied down on the floor, and some of them were squirming and muttering under the webs. The wooden kitchen cupboards and the wall were shod with bullet holes, the small table and chairs by the kitchen was knocked over and the legs of a chair was in splinters, and the sofa across the room was upturned and littered with bullet holes, it’s cushions strewn across the floor. 

“What the hell is this stuff?” Tony asked, inspecting the webs holding the men down. 

“It’s… something I invented,” Peter explained, giving Tony a look which he hoped told the man not to inquire further while Mary was there. 

Tony gave a slight nod and moved to inspect the damage done to his kitchen. 

“Oh my God,” Mary breathed. “You could have died here, Peter.” She snaked an arm gently around Peter’s shoulders and pulled him gently into her side. Peter melted into the comforting embrace and laid his head on his mother’s shoulder, taking in her warmth and sweet smell of perfume. 

Tony must have thought Peter was allowing himself to cling to Mary because he was shaken up, and so he started ushering the pair back towards the lift. 

“Why don’t you two go back down to the lab? I’ll come down when I’ve sorted everything out up here,” Tony said gently, guiding Peter away with a gentle hand on the boy’s back.

Peter allowed himself to be escorted back to the lab by his mother. Truth be told, he was a little shaken up by the incident. He may have been through a lot as Spider-man, but no one had ever tried to kill Peter Parker, at least not without them knowing he was Spider-man. Peter felt safe in Tony’s building, but now he knew Obadiah was trying to kill him, he wanted to get back home even more badly. 

The thought of going home to Tony, May, Ned, even Happy was enough to make his heart pang with homesickness. Tears welled up in Peter’s eyes. 

“Oh, Peter,” Mary comforted, pulled him in closer to her. Peter hadn’t realised that they’d already made it to the lab and were sitting together on the sofa in the corner of the room. “I know that was scary, but everything will be fine. Tony wouldn’t let anything happen to you, you know that.” 

Peter nodded and wiped his eyes with his sleeve, taking deep breaths to try and control his breathing. “I know,” he said quietly.

“Poor, Petey,” Mary cooed, combing her fingers through Peter’s hair and fiddling with his curls. “You’ve been through a lot on this visit, haven’t you?”

Peter sniffed. “I just want to go home,” he mumbled sadly. 

“I know,” Mary soothed, looking at Peter sadly. 

They sat like that for a while, huddled together on the couch with Mary’s arms wrapped protectively around Peter. Peter had never felt so at home so far from his home (well, not geographically, but as in a sense of time). He could hear his mother’s pulse loud and clear in the silence of the room, and it was comforting in an inexplicable way. 

“There is something about you, Peter,” Mary sighed, breaking the silence.

“What do you mean?” Peter frowned.

Mary thought about this for a moment. “I feel like I know you,” she explained. “As in, before we met a few days ago. I don’t know… you just seem familiar. I don’t know how I possibly could know you, though. I just have this feeling… do you know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” Peter assured her. “I do.”

“Maybe you just remind me of Tony,” Mary pondered. “You are quite similar in a way, and you two have the same eyes.” 

A feeling of warmth washed through Peter and dispelled his anxieties. The fact that his own mother had just likened him to Tony was flattering and also kind of hilarious, considering Peter had just found out a the other day that Tony was his father. Peter’s mind flashed back to the argument between Tony and himself after the incident on the ferry with Toomes.

_‘I just wanted to be like you!’_

If only (future) Tony could see him now!

“How is Tony doing, by the way, after I told him…” Mary trailed off.

Peter straightened his back and rubbed his face with his sleeve. “He’s okay,” Peter shrugged. “He was angry at first, but he eventually realised that you were right and that he trusts you to make the right decision.” 

Mary nodded sadly. “Thank you for helping him.”

“It’s no problem,” Peter promised. 

Mary pulled him in impossibly close, but Peter let himself relax into her embrace, resting his head on her shoulder and breathing in the scent of her perfume. 

The familiar scent seemed to unlock old and nearly forgotten memories of his mother; of them cuddled on the sofa under a fluffy blanket, with Peter almost falling asleep to the distant noise of trashy TV. He even remembered hugging his mother goodbye on his first day at nursery, sobbing for his mother not to leave him there and to take him home with her. 

_‘You’ll be fine, Peter,’_ his mother had promised him. _‘You’re my brave little boy.’_

Worst of all, Peter remembered their last goodbye in the hallway of Ben and May’s house. Again, Peter had been sobbing for his parents not to leave him there. 

His father (or who Peter had thought was his father) was standing behind Mary by the door, looking at his (surrogate) son sadly with tearful eyes as Peter clutched his mother tightly.

 _‘Please don’t leave me, Mum,’_ Peter begged through his tears. _‘Please stay with me?’_

 _‘I can’t, Peter,’_ his mother had sobbed, pulling out of the hug to look into Peter’s deep brown eyes with her crystal blue ones. _‘We’ve talked about this, you promised you’ll be brave. Do you promise you’ll be brave? For me?’_

Huge round tears leaked from her eyes, but she looked at Peter with such sorrowful pleading, he couldn’t deny the woman her wish. _‘I promise. As long as you promise you’ll come back for me?’_

His mother had descended into full cries at that point, and Richard had put a reassuring, but also hurrying hand on her shoulder. _‘Okay, Peter – I promise.’_

Peter remembered smiling at her at that point, before she planted one final kiss on his forehead and laced her slender fingers through his curls one last time. 

“Aw, Peter, it’s okay.”

Peter had barely noticed that he was crying in the present, the emotions from the memory bubbling over into reality. Mary was stroking his hair and rubbing his arm reassuringly. 

“I’m sorry,” Peter managed to gasp through his cries. “I’m so sorry.” He was sorry for having an emotional breakdown in front of Mary, but also for making his mother promise him the impossible before she left. 

“It’s okay, sweetie,” Mary consoled. “Everything is okay.” 

After a few minutes Peter started to calm down somewhat. His sobs died down to laboured breaths and sniffs. 

“You know,” Mary started up conversationally. “I always dreamed of having a son and naming him Peter.” 

“You did?” Peter asked, rubbing his eyes and looking up at Mary. 

Mary nodded. “Yeah, I don’t really know why, it’s not a family name or anything… I just can’t imagine anyone called Peter could turn out bad, you know? I’ve always thought it was an innocent and gentle name.”

Peter smiled happily. He hoped that everything he’d done with his life so far would have made his mother proud of him. Peter hoped he was indeed the innocent and gentle person Mary had wanted him to be. 

With a relaxed sigh, Peter stretched out on the couch, leaning against Mary. She continued to softly play with his hair, and the gently feeling slowly lulled Peter to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm actually relatively happy with this chapter, and I've uploaded it early, like you wanted! School is finally over so hopefully I'll be able to upload more often now.   
> In other news, I'm almost certain that there will be a sequel to this fic, and I might post a teaser at the end of this story (which is actually pretty soon, only a few chapters left to write!)  
> Thanks for reading!


	9. It's Time

“Hey.”

Peter was tugged from his blissful sleep by the feeling of the couch he was lying on dip under the weight of another person.

“How is he?”

As if the smell of motor oil and metal didn’t give it away, Peter figured that it was Tony who’d sat beside him. Peter was far too lethargic to even think about opening his eyes and committing to wakefulness, so he nestled himself deeper into his pillow. 

Except his pillow was warm and moving. His pillow was in fact his mother’s lap, and Peter soon felt the familiar fingers carding through his hair. Peter was sure his lip twitched into a smile as he sighed and let himself be drawn back to near-sleep.

“He was a little upset before, but he settled down pretty quickly,” Mary said, but Peter tried to tune out of the conversation and get back to sleep. 

He heard Tony sigh. “Poor guy… Thanks for looking after him.”

“It’s no problem, I like spending time with him,” Mary assured Tony. “Do they know why those guys tried to kill him?”

“The police are working on it,” Tony explained. “They claim to be working independently and wanted to use him to get to me, but they were clearly hired hit-men.” Peter almost scoffed. 

There were a few moments of silence, and Peter almost achieved his wish of falling back to sleep, but just as he was nodding off, Tony began to speak again. 

“I wanted to say… I think you made the right decision in regards to the baby,” Tony said slowly.

Peter was sure he could have cut the silence with a knife. The only sounds in the room was steady heart beats and heavy breathing. 

“Thank you for…” Mary trailed off, and Peter could hear her breathing quicken with tears. “Thank you for everything, Tony. I have really loved these few months together, but I just can’t carry on with this.” 

Peter suddenly felt like he was intruding on a personal moment between his parents. 

He tried with all his might to go back to sleep, but now he was awake, he could not simply slip back into the darkness.

“I know,” Tony said quietly. 

“Tony… I have loved you…” Mary admitted hesitantly. “But I can’t anymore… I can’t do it.” There were not tears in her voice anymore. She seemed to have found some courage in admitting her love for Tony. 

Tony sighed. “I have loved you, too,” he said. “And we both knew this wouldn’t last   
forever. I’m glad this happened though; these last few months have been the best of my life.”

“Me too,” Mary smiled. “Thank you, Tony.”

And that was it. They both seemed genuine and there was no heated argument or heartfelt goodbyes. But Peter was sure Tony preferred it this way – he wasn’t the best with empathy or emotions.

So, the future was saved. Mary would begin working for Oscorp and meet Richard, then they’d agree to pretend that Richard was Peter’s father. In about six years however, they’d get on a plane for a business trip and never come back.

Tony would carry on drinking and working for his company. In about eight years he’d get kidnapped by the Ten Rings and become Iron Man. Everything else will fall into place, like pieces in a jig-saw puzzle. 

Peter wouldn’t deny that he was disappointed that he couldn’t think if a way to save his mother and Richard Parker from the plane crash and also make it so that Tony became Iron Man and was a founding member of the Avengers. 

The room was silent for a long time, in which Peter simply enjoyed being sat squished between his two parents, knowing that this would never happen again. Peter wondered if the future Tony knew that Peter was his son. If so, why hadn’t he told Peter? And if not, how would Peter break the news to him? 

Soon, enough, Tony started to snore softly, and Peter cracked his eyes open and sat up. Tony had fallen asleep at the other end of the sofa, his head tilted back against the cushion at an uncomfortable angle. Peter smiled to himself, glad that he’d got to spend time with this youthful version of Tony. 

Peter noticed that his mother was also asleep and decided to quietly continue working on the watch. He knew it would be finished before morning, so he’d probably be leaving today, ready to head back to the future. 

All Peter needed to do was finish putting the new parts into the watch, put the glowy thing back in and fix the screen back on. 

He slowly and quietly got up without disturbing his parents and tip-toed towards the workbench. Peter heard shifting behind him and looked back to see that without the presence of Peter, Mary had subconsciously curled up on her side, so her head was in Tony’s lap. Peter smiled happily to himself and took a photo of the scene on his phone, which was nearly out of charge. He’d be lying if he said a tear didn’t slip down his cheek.

***

Peter worked non-stop, but barely made a sound as he did so. By 6am, he was placing the green glowy thing back into the watch and fixing the screen on. The luminescent numbers flashed on and off a few times before fading into their full brightness. 

**16.48  
16/8/2000**

Peter fiddled with the buttons on the side, which thankfully Tony and Peter had figured out which button did what and wrote it down, so he wasn’t in danger of miss-clicking and being sent back in time again. He changed the year to 2018 before tidying up his stuff and heading upstairs to the penthouse to change. 

With a yawn and a sigh, Peter realised that this would probably be his last time in the penthouse. Peter barely had time for this thought to enter his brain before the doors to open and he stepped into…police tape?

After a moment’s confusion, Peter realised that the police investigation into the attack must’ve still been going on. 

A large police officer stepped into Peter’s way the pushed a hand into his chest. “Excuse me, kid, you can’t come in here.”

Peter was about to protest when he heard a man speak up from across the room. 

“Oh hey, fellas, there’s the guy.”

Peter looked around to see a group of NYPD officers standing around the kitchen island with Obadiah, who was gesturing towards him. 

“Are you the kid who was here during the attack?” one officer, who looked like the chief, asked.

Peter nodded. 

“Hey, Pete,” Obadiah said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “These guys need a statement from you, it won’t take a few minutes.”

He nodded but grit his teeth as he felt anger rush through him at being called “Pete” by Obadiah as if they were old friends. 

“Come take a seat,” the chief said, indicating one of the chairs by the table, which had been flipped back over the right way. Peter sat with his shoulders slumped and his hands resting in his lap. The officer smiled and took out a note pad and pen. “What’s your name, kid?”

“Uh, Peter Leeds,” he lied. 

The officer wrote it down on the paper. “And have you got an address or phone number we can have to contact your parents?”

Peter fumbled to form a lie in his head. If he gave a fake address, they’d find out all-too soon and he would probably get someone into trouble. 

“Uh, not really… you can talk to Tony,” Peter shrugged, rubbing his neck.

The officer frowned, his pen hovering a few centimetres off the paper. “Your parents don’t have an address, or your parents don’t have a phone number?”

“I don’t really have parents,” Peter said, looking the officer in the eye. “But you can talk to Tony.”

“Okay, kid,” the officer said, still not writing on the pad. “So, uh, what were you doing up here when you were attacked?”

“I was up here getting something to eat,” he explained.

The officer nodded. “And did you recognise any of the men who attacked you?” He placed mug-shots of all six attackers on the table between them. 

“Uh, no, sorry.”

“And do you have any idea why they would wish to attack you?”

Obadiah stepped into view behind the chief officer and looked at Peter down his nose. Peter shook his head and fiddled with his fingers under the table. 

The officer leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Thanks for your time, kid. You can go now.”

Peter stood up from his chair and spoke to the chief. “Can I get my stuff from my room – uh, the guest room?” 

The chief looked at the nearest police officer with a raised eyebrow. 

“The door to the guest room was locked when we got here, so the men couldn’t have gone in. It was searched anyway, just in case, and nothing was found,” the officer explained. 

“Go with the kid, Officer Browning,” the chief instructed, and the large officer who had spoken gestured for Peter to follow him down the hallway. 

Officer Browning opened the door to the guest room and stood in the doorway with his arms crossed once Peter was inside. Despite feeling quite intimidated by Browning’s presence in the room, Peter gathered up his Spider-man suit from where it was discarded on the chair. Underneath was the suit Peter had worn to the gala. The suit Tony had let him borrow. It was creased, rumpled and covered in blood from the cut Peter had had on his face or his bloody nose, and Peter doubted Tony would want it back, but he picked it up and took it with him anyway. Back in the main living area, Peter made a bee-line for the lift, nodding to the chief on his way. 

“Peter, wait.”

Peter’s arms tightened around the clothes he was holding as Obadiah entered the lift after him. 

“Thank you, officers,” Obadiah called to the room before the doors shut on them. “You going to the lab?” he asked in a perfectly friendly manner, as though what happened yesterday had been a dream.

“Yes,” Peter replied simply, looking at Obadiah with confusion.

“Do you mind if we stop at the lobby on the way?” Obadiah asked with a smile. “I’m actually heading to the airport, I had to cancel my flight yesterday because of the attack, so I’m flying back to California today,” he explained, pressing the button for the ground floor. “You know, Pete… those guys who attacked you got a pending twenty year sentence for what they did, so thank you for not telling Tony or the police what I did. I owe you one.” 

Peter was taken aback by the sincerity and thankfulness in his tone. He didn’t speak as the lift arrived at the ground floor. 

“See you soon, Pete,” Obadiah called as he stepped out of the lift. He turned around and flashed him a grin. “Don’t be a stranger,” he added with a wink. But not a nice wink; a creepy, watch-your-back wink.

“Just when I thought you were being nice, you had to ruin it,” Peter muttered to himself as he rolled his eyes and jabbed the sub-basement level button in the lift. “Well, Tony always says that I can’t save everyone,” he sighed.

***

“Good morning, Peter,” came a sleepy voice from behind where Peter was seated at Tony’s desk, yet again playing _Galaga_ on the computer.

Peter spun around to see his mother and Tony slowly stretching and yawning, having clearly just woken up. 

“’Morning,” Peter replied cheerfully, pushing the wheeled chair away from the desk and smiling at his parents. 

His parents who he might never see together again. 

Peter knew his smiled had faltered, because Tony frowned at him questioningly. He watched as Tony’s eyes travelled down to Peter’s left wrist and widen when he saw the watch back intact.

“You finished it?” he asked, standing up and taking Peter’s arm to examine the watch.

Peter nodded. “I can go home,” he muttered. 

Their eyes met, and Tony smiled warmly at Peter. Before he knew it, Tony’s arms were wrapped around him and Peter’s face was pressed into the man’s chest. 

Peter sank into the embrace, clutching the back of Tony’s shirt lightly, reminding him of how the baby Peter had clutched to his father’s shirt with his delicately small hands. 

“You’re leaving?” 

Tony and Peter pulled apart and looked at Mary, who was stood watching them. 

“Yeah,” Peter said. “We’ve finished my project, so now I have to go home and… face the music I guess,” he shrugged. 

Mary smiled sadly at him. “Well, thank you for everything you’ve done for us, Peter,” she said. 

“It’s okay,” Peter said sheepishly. “Thank you, guys, for looking after me.” 

“It’s been a pleasure, Peter,” Mary said, moving towards them and wrapping Peter up in a hug. 

Peter pulled his arms around her tightly, breathing in her familiar scent and listening to the sound of her heartbeat. He held back tears as they pulled away, knowing that that was the last time he’d ever get to hug his mother. 

“I hope we meet again, Peter,” she said with a sad smile. 

“Me too,” Peter said quietly, not trusting his voice to stay steady. 

He looked up into his mother’s smiling eyes and wished with all his heart that he didn’t have to leave her. Peter wanted more than anything to help her, save her, and stay with her. He didn’t want this to be their last goodbye. 

“Have you got all your stuff, Pete?” Tony asked, pulling Peter out of his sorrowful thoughts. 

Peter nodded, pulling up the sleeve of his borrowed jumper to show Tony the red of his Spider-man suit. “Uh… I also got this,” he said, picking to bloodied tuxedo off the table and handing it to Tony. “Sorry I got blood on it.”

Tony smiled as he took the suit in his hands. “It’s okay,” he chuckled. “You suited it more than I did anyway. Let me call Happy, he can get the car ready.” Tony headed around the corner of the lab, and Peter could soon hear him talking to Happy on the phone. 

Peter looked around the lab, for one final time, thinking how different it was to Tony’s new lab. 

“Are you ever going to come back here?” Mary asked.

“I think so,” Peter replied thoughtfully. “Probably not anytime soon, though.”

Mary nodded. “I hope everything goes well when you get back home.” 

“Thanks,” Peter smiled awkwardly. “I hope everything goes well for you, too. I’ll miss you.” Whoops. Peter had not meant for that last bit to slip out, but his emotions had gotten the better of him. 

To Peter’s surprise, Mary pulled him in for another tight hug. “I’ll miss you, too,” she said into his hair. She kissed him on the forehead before letting him go and quickly leaving the lab, rubbing her eyes as she went. 

Part of Peter wanted to call her back, to stop her from leaving and to tell her everything; everything that had happened and everything that will happen. But another part of Peter knew that it was much easier this way. This way he wouldn’t be tempted. 

He listened to the lift doors close, and to Tony telling Happy that they’d be right up. 

“You ready to go, kid?” Tony asked as he walked back around the corner. 

“Yep,” Peter replied in a falsely cheerful voice, blinking away tears. 

He busied himself with double checking he had his phone (which was now definitely out of charge), his web-shooters and his mask, before following Tony into the lift. Tony ushered Peter through the lobby and into the private car park, where they saw Happy standing grumpily by an expensive-looking Audi. 

“Let’s hit the road, Happy,” Tony called.

Happy gave an angry grunt and slipped into the driver’s seat, while Tony and Peter got into the back seats. 

Tony talked a-mile-a-minute for the whole journey. Peter knew that he was trying to distract Peter from his nerves, and Peter appreciated that. He talked in depth about his new projects and relayed a story about an experiment that had gone wrong in his time at MIT. Peter let himself become engaged in Tony’s chatter until the car pulled up to a stop on the very road where Peter was blasted back in time and where Happy had hit him with the car almost a week ago. 

“This is it, buddy,” Tony said, unplugging his seatbelt and stepping out of the car with Happy. Peter follow suit, abuzz with nervous and excited energy. No matter how much he would miss his mother, he was eager to finally get to go home. 

“You appeared right there,” Tony said, pointing to a spot in the middle of the busy street, “so if you go from this alley here,” he pointed to an alley between two near-by buildings, “no one will see you and you should appear back in the right area when you get to the future.”

“Okay,” Peter said with a nod. He turned to Tony. “Thank you for helping me.”

Tony smiled and put his arm around Peter’s shoulders. “It’s been a genuine pleasure to have you around, kid. I can’t wait to see you again in about fifteen years i guess.” Peter blushed. 

“Hey, boss,” Happy called from where he stood by the car in a disgruntled tone. “We need to go soon; you have interviews for your new assistant.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “It’s fine, Hap, we have time.”

“We really don’t, your first interview is in half an hour with Virginia Potts,” Happy informed him impatiently. Peter’s eyes widened for a moment and a small smile spread across his lips at the familiar name.

“Okay, okay,” Tony said, steering Peter towards the aforementioned alleyway.

Together, they reset to time on the watch to a few minutes before Peter was sent back from 2018. The plan was that Peter got there early so that he could figure out a way to take down the Goggle-man when he got to the future. 

“Here,” Peter said. Pulling off his borrowed jumper and sweatpants and handing them back to Tony. “Thank you.”

Tony smiled at Peter sadly. “I’ll see you in a few years, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Peter mumbled, looking at his hands. “See you.”

The pair mutually came together for one last hug, before Peter pulled the Spider-man mask over his head and moved deeper into the alleyway. Tony stood near the mouth of the alley and watched him go. 

“Bye, Peter,” he called after the boy.

“Goodbye, Tony,” Peter replied. “Thanks, again.”

Tony smiled at him as Peter set the watch ready to go. He gave Tony a joking salute, which Tony returned, and pressed the face of the watch inwards. Green light encompassed him, blocking his view of Tony. His feet left the floor and he could feel himself falling. Blood rushing in his ears deafened him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS NOT THE LAST CHAPTER! I have one more lovely instalment for you all, and then (possibly) a sequel. Please let me know if you would want a sequel because I sort of have an idea for one, but I'm not sure whether to write that or to write a completely different story (still in this fandom though). Also, I was editing this and found loads of mistakes because I wrote it at a ridiculous time of night, but I may have missed some, so please forgive me.   
> Thank you so much for reading and for your amazing comments!


	10. Time to Pretend

_Tony smiled at him as Peter set the watch ready to go. He gave Tony a joking solute. Which Tony returned, and pressed the face of the watch inwards. Green light encompassed him, blocking his view of Tony. His feet left the floor and he could feel himself falling. Blood rushing in his ears deafened him._

Peter landed and stumbled sideways into a waste bin that had not been there before. He shook away his dizziness and clumsily walked to the entrance of the alleyway, hearing the sounds of battle beyond. 

Warm feeling spread through Peter as he heard the familiar sounds of repulsors firing and the flick of his web-shooters. Coming to the end of the alley, Peter stayed pressed into the wall, but stuck his head around the corner to see Iron Man zoom through the air, firing at the Goggle-man on the floor. He also saw himself leap from the floor to the buildings, swinging on webs and trying to web up the Goggle-man. 

Peter was relieved, to say the least, that he'd made it back to the correct time in the correct place, and that nothing much appeared to have changed. 

“But nice shot, kid,” he heard Tony say to the other Peter thanks to his enhanced hearing. 

“Thanks, Mr Stark,” Peter heard the other Peter say, and cringed at how high-pitched his voice was and how he was unable to suppress the happiness he’d felt at Tony’s praise. 

Peter heard Tony ask something about the NYPD but didn’t really listen as he started to formulate a plan of action in his head. Thinking fast, Peter scaled the side of the building he was next to and watched the battle from above. 

The glowing gun in the Goggle-man’s hands started whirring and shooting at random, out of the man’s control.

“Pete, look out!” he heard Tony yell. 

Peter watched himself get shot mid-swing and fall to the ground, hissing at the memory of the pain. 

“Peter?!” Tony cried, flying towards where Peter had gone down, but not reaching him fast enough, as the Goggle-man had just hauled Peter’s limp body into a standing position. 

Peter was too far away to hear the pair (his past self and the Goggle-man) mumbling, but then the Goggle man was shouting to Tony. 

“And Mr Stark will keep his distance unless he wants this kid’s brains blown out!” He’d shouted shoving the butt of his gun to the barely conscious Peter’s forehead. 

Tony stopped his pursuit and hovered in mid-air, his hand raised threateningly. 

“Let the kid go, moron,” Tony demanded.

“No thanks, I’ve got plans for this one,” the man sneered, and started to secure the watch to Peter’s limp arm.

Tony started forward again, thinking the man was distracted.

“Stay back, Stark. I don’t want to have to kill this kid,” Goggle-man demanded. 

The past Peter started to weakly squirm in the man’s grip, but his efforts were fruitless. 

“Say goodbye to your kid, Stark,” Goggle-man laughed as he finished setting the watch. “Have a nice trip, Peter.”

“Mr Stark,” past-Peter called desperately in a sacred voice as he struggled.

“Hang in there, Pete,” Tony instructed, beginning to charge up his repulsors, but before they could fire, past-Peter was surrounded by green light and Goggle-man was jumping back, out of the way. 

Not a second later, the light vanished, and took the past-Peter with it. 

The current Peter readied himself for action, crouching on his nearby rooftop as Iron Man looked around the street below. 

“Peter?!” he called wildly. 

Goggle-man laughed loudly, spread his arms wide and looked to the sky. “It has begun!” he yelled in triumph. 

What the hell was he expecting to happen? Did he expect Peter to reappear out of the sky? What had he planned? Tony’s words from a few days ago (eighteen years ago) suddenly came back into Peter’s head; ‘that guy must have sent Peter to this specific time in the past for a reason’. But now Peter thought of it, what was that reason? Had he really gone through all that trouble just to give Peter – some kid he probably didn’t even know – the opportunity to get a better childhood? That didn’t seem right. Maybe he’d realised that if Peter chose the alternative future, Iron Man, and the Avengers and Spider-man might not exist. 

Maybe he wanted millions of people dead. 

“Yeah, nothing is happening,” Tony pointed out in a bored yet impatient tone, and Peter was sure he was rolling his eyes beneath his mask. “Now tell me where my kid is, or I’ll blast you into next Tuesday!” he yelled at the man, charging up his repulsors.

 _‘My kid’._ Maybe Tony did know that Peter was his son. 

“Just wait, Stark, any minute now!” Goggle-man laughed, looking expectantly around him. 

“Nope, you have five seconds to tell me where my kid is,” Tony said sternly. “Five, four, three…”

Peter shot a web at the next building and prepared to jump.

“Two.”

Peter jumped and swung down, landing gracefully next to Tony. “One!” Peter called out as he landed, wasting no time in webbing the Goggle-man’s gun and yanking it away with a triumphant, “Yoink!”

“Oh, there he is,” Tony commented happily, waving at Peter. 

Goggle-man splutter. “What…how …. This wasn’t supposed to happen!” he cried, falling to his knees in despair. 

“I know,” Peter said with a shrug. “You thought you got me. But boy were you wrong!” 

“Does someone want to tell me what’s happening here?” Tony spoke up.

“You – you weren’t meant to choose this future,” Goggle-man shouted angrily, ignoring Tony. 

Peter smirked beneath his mask. “I know… but I’m also not a complete idiot, so…”

“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” Tony asked, landing beside Peter. 

Goggle-man seethed with anger. “You did it wrong… you were meant to choose the other one… stupid! STUPID!” he grumbled through gritted teeth. He started to adjust the purple watch on his wrist, but Peter quickly webbed his hands and feet, walking forward and carefully pulling the watch off the man’s wrist and throwing it aside. He was surprised at how easily his watch came off, considering Peter’s had been attached to his wrist for a full week now. 

“Peter…?” Tony said from behind him. 

Peter turned and looked at Tony. “I think you already know what’s happening, Mr Stark,” Peter admitted quietly. “Eighteen years ago today, Happy hit me with the car.”

The Iron Man helmet retracted so that Peter could see Tony’s worn expression. Peter was almost startled to see the slight wrinkles, small scars on his face and grey flecks in his hair after seeing a much younger Tony’s face for the past week. “Is… is that where he sent you?” 

Peter nodded. 

“The gala, the attack, Mary… that all only just happened for you?” Tony asked. 

With another nod, Peter moved back in front of Tony. “Yep, but right now I could sleep for another eighteen years, so can we have The Talk later, please.”

Tony’s expression softened, and he wrapped an arm round Peter’s shoulder. “Sure. FRIDAY, let the NYPD know that we’ve caught the culprit and left him tied up in the street.”

“Wait, I want to know who it is,” Peter said, walking back to the man and reaching for the goggles. He pulled the goggles over the man’s dirty blond hair and looked down on the face of… Fred Murray?

“Fred?” Tony asked, clearly shocked. “The hell, man?”

Fred glared at Tony. “You ruined my life, Stark! I thought I’d repay the favour!”

“What are you talking about? You left SI of your own accord!” Tony countered, frowning at Fred. 

“Oh, I know,” Fred sneered. “It’s what you did in the years to come that I was trying to undo.” Fred’s expression darkened and his face creased in what Peter guessed was grief. 

Peter cleared his throat. He knew that Tony had an over inflated guilt complex, and the man really didn’t need to have yet another villain to nudge Tony closer to the vast abyss of grief. “I think we should go, Mr Stark,” Peter said awkwardly. 

Tony looked between Peter and Fred before nodding. 

“You can’t escape it, Tony,” Fred called to them as they headed away. “You leave a trail of death wherever you-“

He was cut off by a web hitting his mouth and sealing his lips shut. Tony looked at Peter disapprovingly, but Peter could see the ghost of sadness and guilt in his eyes. Peter looked up with his most innocent Bambi eyes and managed to elicit a small smile to Tony’s lips. 

Just then, numerous police cars turned the corner onto the street and towards where Fred was tied up. 

“Thank you, Stark,” one officer said as he stepped out of the car. “And you, Spidey.” 

Peter grinned wildly under his mask at the recognition. 

“No problem officer,” Tony smiled, before bringing his helmet back over his head. “Let’s get you home, kid,” he said as he face-plate came back over his face and he lifted Peter into his arms in a bridal carry. Peter let out an embarrassed groan, which Tony ignored, and suddenly Iron Man was blasting off into the sky with Peter in his arms.

Peter waved lazily at the Police officers who were looking up at them flying away. Time-travel must have used up all his energy, because he was almost asleep by the time they landed outside the compound. 

Tony set him down on the ground and put an arm around Peter’s shoulders, squeezing the boy tighter than he usually would. 

“Come on,” Tony said quietly. “Let’s get you checked out by a doctor.”

“Mr Stark, I’m fine,” Peter protested.

“Yeah, I’m going to wait for a real doctor to give you the aye-okay before I take your word for it,” Tony responded sternly. “Also, enough with the ‘Mr Stark’s, I remember you quite clearly calling me Tony eighteen years ago.”

Peter huffed a laugh and subconsciously lent his heavy head on Tony’s shoulder as they entered the facility. He felt Tony’s arm and shoulder stiffen, and wondered if he should stop leaning on him, not wanting to make him uncomfortable. However, almost as soon as it had happened, Tony relaxed and hugged Peter tightly to his side. 

Feeling completely drained by the time they reached the med-bay, Peter was relieved when he was sat down on a comfy bed but was told not to fall asleep before the doctors could complete a full medical examination. Tony had to reassure him several times that the doctors had been sworn to secrecy about Peter’s identity, and then Peter only reluctantly took the suit off and changed into some pyjamas.

The head doctor (Dr Cho, Tony had called her) examined Peter’s vitals and minor injuries while Tony looked on with an unreadable expression. Dr Cho cleaned and redressed the almost-healed bullet graze on Peter’s arm and prodded uncomfortably at the bruising on his back from where Obadiah had slammed him into the kitchen counter. 

“Your injuries are now mostly healed due to your healing factor, but the bruising on your back may take more time to fade,” Dr Cho said calmly, talking to Peter.   
Tony moved closer to hear what was being said. “I’m sure your spine was not damaged, but the bruising seems to be causing you a small amount of pain, so just take it easy for a day or two.” Peter noticed that Tony’s frown deepened as Dr Cho spoke, and he shifted uncomfortably where he stood.

“Apart from that,” Dr Cho continued. “Your older injuries are mostly healed, and you are just exhausted and slightly dehydrated. Get as much sleep as you can, and you’ll be back to normal in a few days. You are free to go.” Cho smiled kindly at Peter.

“Thank you,” Peter said quietly, returning the smile. 

Dr Cho left, and Peter began to stand up from the bed and leave the room, more than ready to head to his own room in the compound to sleep for an eternity. But Tony put a firm hand on his shoulder and followed him out of the room. 

“Why didn’t you tell me that you hurt your back? How did it even happen?” he asked, frowning at Peter with that disappointed look that Peter hated. 

Peter looked away, hating himself for disappointing Tony. “I didn’t think it was important,” he mutter with a shrug. 

“What do you mean?” Tony questioned. “Back injuries can be serious, you could have been really hurt!”The worry was showing in Tony’s voice as anger, which was making Peter angry too. 

“But I’m not,” Peter pointed out, keeping his voice cool. 

“But you could have been,” Tony argued, steering Peter determinedly through the corridors. “I thought we’d built up this trust thing, Pete?!”

Peter hated when Tony used a pet-name for him when they were arguing; it brought a nasty taste to his mouth. 

“I’ve only been back for like half an hour, calm down,” Peter said, rolling his eyes. 

“But you didn’t tell me all those years ago either!” Tony practically shouted. 

“Tony, stop yelling at me! I’ve just got back from travelling in time, for God’s sake, and all you can do is yell?! You have no idea what this week has been like for me! Well, let me tell you, it was pretty shit!” Peter… didn’t shout, just _said loudly._

“Don’t be unreasonable, Peter!” Tony snapped. 

Peter huffed indignantly. “I’m not being unreasonable, I’m trying to save your feelings!” 

Tony opened his mouth to speak, but then paused. “What?” 

“It was Obadiah, okay?” Peter reluctantly admitted, knowing that he couldn’t avoid it any longer. He knew Tony would hate himself and feel responsible that Obadiah had hurt Peter, but what was the point in arguing with Tony when Peter would soon have to pop the dad-question. “I’m sure you know by now, but those guys that attacked me in the Penthouse had been hired by Obadiah. When they failed to kill me, Obadiah gave it a shot. He pushed me into the kitchen counter at one point and it must have bruised my back.” 

“He tried to kill you?” Tony asked in a small voice.

Peter nodded. “It was fine, though… he didn’t hurt me badly.” 

They were silent as they walked through the facility, and Peter knew Tony was deep in thought and guilt.

“I’m sorry,” the older man said eventually. 

“Sorry for what?” Peter asked. 

Tony sighed. “You know what.”

“To be fair,” Peter began. “There’s quite a few things you could be sorry about right now.”

The man rubbed the back of his neck and smiled sadly. “I know…” he admitted. “I’m sorry Obadiah hurt you… I should have realised what he was sooner. And I’m sorry for getting mad at you when I was drunk that time, and I’m sorry for getting drunk at the gala and leaving you to deal with the shooter.”

“It’s fine,” Peter shrugged. “I’m just glad I could help.” 

Peter knew this was the time to ask the dad question, but as soon as he began to formulate the words in his mind, his palms began to sweat, and his breath caught in his throat. He was scared that Tony would hate that Peter was his son, and that he’d send Peter away and never contact him again. Peter didn’t want to risk ruining the weird father-figure and sort-of-son relationship he had with Tony.

“And,” Tony continued when Peter didn’t say anything. “I’m sorry for being a shit father.” 

His neck clicked painfully as Peter whipped his head up to look at Tony. Tony looked guiltily at Peter before averting his eyes and looking at the ceiling. A weight lifted from Peter as all his worries about having to tell Tony he’s his father and anxiety about what his reaction would be lifted from his shoulders. Relief and happiness flooded through Peter, and he instantly stopped walking and threw his arms around Tony’s waist. He buried his face in the man’s chest and breathed in the familiar scent of expensive soaps and engine oil. 

Tony had stopped dead when Peter had thrown himself at him. For once, he didn’t stiffen under the embrace, but soon wrapped his own arms around the small boy’s back and rested his chin on Peter’s head. 

“You’re a great dad, Tony,” Peter assured him.

The father and son stayed clutched in each other’s arms, and if Peter felt tears falling in his hair and could hear Tony’s sniffs and ragged breathing, he never mentioned it to his father. 

***

Peter lay awake in bed for hours. His body was exhausted, but his mind was wide awake, so Peter was too. He rolled over yet again and wondered how a bed so expensive and soft could be so hard to get comfortable on. With a sigh, Peter got his phone (now fully charged) off the night stand and flipped from app to app mindlessly. 

He’d texted May earlier to tell her he was okay and that he was staying at the compound that night but promised to be home the next day. Ned had also been texting him relentlessly all evening, asking about the fight with the goggle-man, which he’d heard about from the news. Peter checked and, thankfully, there hadn’t been any footage of the fight, so no one had seen Peter get blasted back in time. 

“Boss would like you to meet him in the communal lounge,” FRIDAY suddenly spoke into the darkness of the room. 

“Now?” Peter asked in a husky voice. 

“Yes, Master Peter.”

With a sigh, Peter slowly got out of bed and headed through the dark corridors to the lounge. It had only been 6pm when Tony insisted Peter went to bed early, but it was now passed midnight and Peter hadn’t gotten a minute of sleep. 

“Good evening, Peter,” Tony said as Peter walked into the lounge. “Or should I say good morning?” 

Tony smiled at Peter from where he was standing at the kitchen island, his favourite mug in one hand and Peter’s favourite in the other in the other. 

“FRIDAY told me you couldn’t sleep,” Tony explained, walking from the kitchen to the living room area with multiple couches and a large TV. He sat down on the couch directly in front of the TV, put the mugs on the coffee table in front of him and patted the space next to him, indicating for Peter to sit next to him.   
Hesitantly, Peter walked over and slowly sat down beside him. 

“Here,” he said, handing Peter his mug. It was a blue mug with a red detailing of a spider in a web that Tony had bought him from a souvenir shop in Queens, and it was one of the first pieces of Spider-man merchandise either of them had seen. Peter took the mug and smelled the steaming, frothy hot chocolate inside. “What do you want to watch?” Tony asked, kicking up his legs to rest them on the coffee table. “ _Doctor Who? Back to the Future? The Time Machine?_ ”

Peter groaned and punched Tony’s arm as the man laughed. They settled on watching _The Incredibles_ , which Tony had never seen, much to Peter’s dismay. 

“Buddy’s going to be the villain,” Tony declared as soon as he was taken away by the cops in the opening scene. 

“Dude,” Peter groaned in annoyance. 

“What? I’m right aren’t I?” Tony exclaimed.

Peter rolled his eyes. “Yeah, but couldn’t you just enjoy the film rather than try to figure out the plot in the first five minutes!” 

“Sorry,” Tony grumbled, though he didn’t sound it. “Listen, Pete,” he said, turning the volume of the TV down and facing Peter. “I know you’ve been through a lot, and most of that was my fault, so I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Tony,” Peter told him. “Everything that happened happened for a reason. You were actually really nice to me all those years ago; nicer than I thought you’d be anyway.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tony asked in faked offence. 

Peter shrugged. “I’d heard that you were kind of an idiot when you were younger, but you didn’t really seem like that when I was there, apart from when you were drunk.”

“Yeah,” Tony grimaced. “The idiot Tony mostly come out to play when I was drunk, but even I knew I couldn’t be wasted too often when there’s a minor around.”  
Peter raised an eyebrow, and Tony threw a pillow in his face. 

“You have balls to cheek the person who spent a week helping you, who was basically a stranger, to get home,” Tony warned him, though he was smiling the whole time.

“Thank you for helping me, by the way,” Peter said earnestly. “I’m surprised you trusted me.”

“So was I,” Tony admitted. “It was… weird.” He looked at Peter, but it was like he was looking through him. “As soon as I saw you, I thought I knew you from somewhere. I have no idea why, but the feeling of wanting to help and protect you was so strong that I decided to hear you out. I thought that once I got to know you, I’d realise how I knew you or why I felt so responsible for you. That didn’t really happen though, I didn’t figure it out until…”

“Until what?” Peter asked, trying to eek the rest of the story out of Tony. 

Tony chuckled to himself and looked away. “Until years later when I found out Mary called her child Peter. That’s when I first thought the mystery boy from the future was son, then over the years I kept tabs on you. Mary and her husband died, and I almost applied for guardianship. But then your aunt and uncle took you in. Mary wouldn’t have wanted me to raise you anyway. Lucky I didn’t, actually, because then all that shit in Afghanistan happened, and Obadiah tried to kill me; the usual stuff.”

“Why didn’t you…” Peter began but trailed off as he worried that he’d offend Tony. 

“Why didn’t I contact you sooner?” Tony supplied. Peter nodded. “Because I was scared,” Tony explained, looking at Peter sadly. “I was scared that I hadn’t changed and that I was still incapable of being a father, like Mary thought.”

“She didn’t think you were incapable,” Peter argued. “She didn’t think you were ready to be a dad. She didn’t want to put all that pressure on you.”

Tony looked away and gulped. “But… the more I get to know you, the more I regret not being there for you in your childhood.” 

“Mr Sta – Tony, I don’t care that you weren’t there then, because you’re here now,” Peter explained earnestly. “I’m just glad I know you now.” Peter knew he couldn’t stop Tony from feeling guilty, but he hoped that he could at least try. 

“So am I,” Tony said. He sighed before looking back at the TV screen, although he probably had no idea what was going on in the movie considering they hadn’t been watching for the last ten minutes. 

Peter suddenly had a thought. “You found out why Fred did it didn’t you?” That would surely be the reason why suddenly felt so guilty. 

Tony snuffed. “I spoke to him,” Tony admitted. “I went to the police station about an hour after I put you to bed. I told FRIDAY not to tell you, but I went in the suit in case you needed me and I had to get back quickly.” If Peter hadn’t been so touched by this, he laughed at the idea of Tony sitting in a police interrogation room in full armour. “Turns out that his family died in the Chatauri invasion all those years ago. They hadn’t managed to escape the apartment building they were in and when I took down one of the big flying ones, it crashed into the building and killed them.”

“Tony, that doesn’t mean it’s your fault,” Peter insisted. 

“But he held me responsible,” Tony argued. He spoke again before Peter could. “He stole some of the Chatauri tech and spent all these years making a time-travel device to send me back in time and somehow erase the future. Then recently he joined the dots between Iron Man and Spider-man and the kid that Tony Stark kept being spotted with. He wanted me to suffer like he had. So, he hacked into my computer system to figure out more about us, and somehow managed to find the files I’d kept on you; like news articles about your parents’ death and any stuff about you in school newsletters I could find. He remembered you from back in the day as well, he remembered you at the gala. I don’t know how, but he figured out that you were my biological son; he probably realised that the timings didn’t match up for Richard to be your father. So, he decided that it would be more damaging to send you back in time. But, that’s the part I don’t get… how could sending you back have been worse than sending me?” 

Peter stiffened uncomfortable, and Tony frowned. He shrugged, but Peter could tell Tony didn’t believe him. 

“You know when I went to see Fred, he said that he’d come to visit you while you were in 2000, he said he went back from a few days ago to set it up for the fight today. But he never told me what he was doing there,” Tony explained. “And I don’t remember seeing him around?”

The lie was crumbling around Peter and he knew it. But he didn’t wan to tell Tony about what he’d seen in the alternative future, mainly because he didn’t know how Tony would react. He might chastise Peter for making the wrong decision, or he might think Peter was weak for almost giving in to that future. 

“It was when you sent me away from the lab that morning Mary came to see you,” Peter explained quietly. “I went out and he appeared behind me. We… we just talked.”

“So… today when he was yelling at you for ‘doing it wrong’ and choosing the ‘wrong’ future,” Tony asked. “What was he talking about?”

Peter swilled his hot chocolate around in the cup, watching as it made a tiny whirl pool as he tried to formulate a substantial lie. “He told me how to change the future, if I wanted,” Peter finally said. “Fred gave me the option to change it, so I could get a better childhood.”

“Why didn’t you?” Tony asked, looking puzzled.

“Because it was too risky,” Peter said. “I don’t even know if it was possible to change the future, considering it already happened. And even if I did, there was the possibility that I change it too much and accidentally kill everyone or something. I know there was a chance that it would mean Mary and Richard and Ben wouldn’t die, but what if that meant that you did? What if it meant that you never became Iron Man? And when I thought about how many people you have helped or saved, I didn’t want all those people to die. And also, the Avengers might not have formed, so then even more people would die, and even if they did, you might not have been in it, so that nuke that almost destroyed New York in the Chatauri invasion might have hit its target.” Peter didn’t miss the way the Tony’s breath hitched but decided to carry on talking. “All of that could have led to millions of deaths, so what was the point in saving a few people, when I was basically killing millions.” He didn’t know he was crying until his voice cracked and he felt the tears on his cheeks.

But Tony was having none of it. He pulled Peter’s hands away from his face and looked into his watering eyes. 

“Peter,” Tony sighed quietly, before pulling Peter into a tight hug. “I’m sorry.” 

Peter cried into Tony’s shoulder, listening to the man’s soft reassurances and apologies. His warmth and familiar scent calmed Peter enough that he pulled out of the hug but shuffled himself closer to Tony on the sofa and rested his head on his father’s shoulder. Tony carded his fingers through his son’s soft hair until Peter’s breathing evened out and fell still.

“I’m proud of you, Pete,” Tony whispered into the boy’s hair, thinking Peter was asleep. “You’re the bravest, strongest person I’ve ever met, and I’m proud to call you my son.” He pulled in a long breath. “I love you, Peter,” he uttered in a quiet sigh.

“I love you, too.”

If Tony hadn’t seen Peter’s lips move, he wouldn’t have believed he’d heard it. 

“You cheeky little shit,” Tony laughed. 

“Language,” Peter chastised in a sleepy sigh. 

***

Peter was still in his pyjamas, even though it was already passed mid-day. He sat at his little work-station Tony had set up for him in the lab to work on Spider-man stuff. Peter was sat at his chair with his left arm extended while Tony used a rather large and dangerous looking tool to cut through the reinforced strap of the time-travel watch.

“Don’t worry, I have very steady hands,” Tony assured him, just as the blade slipped, thankfully away from both of there hands, and hit the table. 

“You’re not exactly filling me with confidence, Tony,” Peter replied cheekily. 

“That was on purpose,” Tony insisted. 

Suddenly, FRIDAY spoke up from the hidden speakers. “Happy Hogan is requesting entry to the lab, boss.”

“Send him in, FRI,” Tony said, not looking up from his work. 

The doors opened, and Happy walked in, wearing his usual dark suit and grumpy expression to match. 

“I got your text,” Happy huffed, stuffing his hands in his pockets. 

Tony got a mischievous glint in his eyes and smirked. “Good,” he sneered. “Now, do you have something to say to Peter?”

Happy shifted uncomfortable and glanced at Peter. “Ah ah, Happy. Looked him in the eyes,” Tony demanded, struggling to keep the smile out of his voice. 

With a reluctant sigh, Happy faced Peter and looked into his eyes. “Peter, I’m sorry I was a dick to you all those years ago. I promise I’ll make it up to you by not being a dick from now on,” Happy sighed, rolling his eyes as he finished. 

“See, that wasn’t so bad,” Tony said. 

“Thank you, Happy,” Peter added. Happy smiled slightly at Peter.

Tony scoffed. “Oh yes, wasn’t it heart-warming,” he said sarcastically. “It’s not at all like I told him exactly what to and threatened to sack him if he didn’t   
apologise to you.” 

“Tony,” Peter chided. “You’re ruining the moment.”

Tony grumbled while Happy laughed, though he quickly covered it up as a cough. 

“Don’t’ you have a job to do, Happy?” Tony reminded him with a sly grin. 

“Don’t you?” Happy mumbled under his breath as he left the room.

Peter smiled at Tony and watched as he succeeded in breaking to strap and getting the watch off his wrist. 

“Now’s the fun part,” Tony said excitedly. “We get to take them apart and see how they work.”

“Them?” Peter asked, confused because Tony only had one time-travel device. 

Tony back at Peter as he wandered over to his own desk. “Yeah, the NYPD couldn’t make head nor tail of Fred’s device or his gun, so they gave them to me to see if I can figure out who he made it and stuff. I have to write a report on it for them but…” 

Peter tuned around, staring at the purple watch time-travel device Tony had just taken out of the draw and placed on the table. He could remember the scene of Tony singing to him as a baby so clearly it was painful, he desperately wanted to go back and see more, and find out if his predictions were correct; to see if he made the right choice.

“You okay, kid?” Tony asked, looking at Peter with concerned eyes, drawing Peter out of his thoughts. 

With a firm nod, Peter looked away from the device. “Yeah,” he said with a forced smile. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

 

But he wasn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter of this fic, sadly.  
> Thank you all so much for your support of this fic, all your comments and kudos mean so much to me! I'm so surprised at how well this fic has done, so thank you all for reading it and I honestly hope that you enjoyed it.   
> If you didn't know already, there will be a sequel, as I have sort of hinted at in this chapter. I'll upload the first chapter as soon as I've written it, but it should only be a few weeks until then.   
> Also, I'm going away for a few weeks, so I'm sorry if I don't respond to many comments, but I'll try my best.  
> Thank you again for reading this fanfic, I hope to see you soon for the sequel!  
> Stay safe, guys!  
> -Rowan.


	11. Sequel

As requested, here is your update to tell you that the sequel to this fic is going out now - I'm about to post it right after this. Please check it out, but be warned, it is a little darker than this fic, but I hope you like it anyway. It's called 'Don't Look Back' and it's about Peter feeling guilty for the decision he made in 'Time to Pretend' - he basically feels like he killed his parents and uncle Ben and is convinced that he ruined Tony's life. He does travel in time at some pint, but it might not be until about the third chapter, I'm not sure yet. I hope you enjoy it, but please do not feel obliged to read it as it is a tad bit different to this fic.   
I'd also like to thank everyone for the love and support you gave this fic! You comments were the nicest thing ever and they honestly made my day! Thank you so so much everyone!

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!  
> This is my first fic in this fandom, so I hope it's okay.  
> New chapters will be posted whenever I can, but mostly at weekends.  
> Thank you for reading!


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